Back, waaaaay back in time there was once a KTOG 2008.

We (the East Dartmoor Tea Shop Knitters) had another event to celebrate knitting week back in October.


Here's a belated summary of events and thanks to all who made the KTOG afternoon such a success!

Over 120 fibre addicted folk (and that's not including vendor, helpers and children) managed to find the scout hall in Mill Marsh Park in Bovey Tracey.


Here's the hall in the morning as we're setting up...

We had a wonderful display of finished items - Jae did a fine job of showing things off - thanks to members of the East Dartmoor tea shop knitters group AND wyesue and not forgetting Mary Mallett and her handspun goodies. You can see wyesue's daffy shawl on the right hand side.


Here is Kathryn's knitted bunting decorating the entrance.






And this picture is of various WIPs. (the aim is to inspire)




There were stalls by (working my way round the hall in a clockwise direction) Yarnaddict Anni, Claire Crompton, Jane Sowerby, Lesley of Devon Fine Fibres, Joyce of Spin-A-Yarn, John Arbon and daughter from Coldharbour Mill at Uffculme and Mary in the corner by the cafe with several spinning wheels…


















Sara was running a wetfelting session in the centre of the hall.

We also had lots of homemade cake and tea . In the other room (where the workshop signups were hard to find!) was a display of charity knitteds and Gina selling more yarn.

This hatted knitter (from Manaton, but I can't remember her name) is standing with Christine, holding the red shawl - she turned up on the day with a knitted castle and knitted knight and lots of little cakes and sweets - which we just had to show off - here it all is displayed on the table below.
Our stall holders generously donated raffle prizes - lots of goodies!














This is a picture of my mum seated next to one of the first panels from Alison Murray's new project "Undersea, overwaves" - this is going to be a really ambitious community knitting project where you'll be able to walk through a tunnel and see the fishes, mermaids and lighthouses - do join in and raise money for the RNLI by doing so.

I can't believe that my friend Sandra won about FOUR raffle prizes despite us shaking up the tickets vigorously after each drawing ( I think she must have bought loads). She put one win back in the pot, and donated a couple more to the organisers (one for me! - I was given Nancy Bush's "KNitting on the Road" which I've been hankering after for ages, so I was well impressed - thanks Sandra.)

With money from the raffle and cafe, and after expenses, we managed to pay our workshop organisers a small something toward covering their expenses this year (special thanks to Anni, Sara, WyeSue and Mary) - and also gave £66 to Bliss and £20 to the UK knitting and crochet guild charity. WE have kept back £50 to help toward next year’s costs.
We had excellent feedback about the event overall, but also some criticism that the stitch and bitch cafe wasn’t that welcoming. We have taken this on board (and apologise!) and will try and ensure that at least one of our teashop knitters will hang around the cafe and radiated warmth and welcome next year :-)))

Here's Yvonne, who runs the Packhorse Knitter's group in South Brent, chatting with Mary Mallett: Yvonne's group also raised money for Bliss in Knitting Week - altogether we sent off around £80 plus lots of premie knitted items for the local SCBU.



Here's two of our TEA shop knitters who have been otherwise engaged recently - Tina and Ruth have been having babies! Great - new knitters of the future!












There was a bit of doggy excitement this year: My friend Bev came along to the event with her border collie tom and offered to take my lab Syd for a walk in the park. That's Syd sitting at Jill's feet in the hall before people started arriving.
20 mins after Bev had taken the dogs off to Mill Marsh Park she came back to the hall in a right old state, “Come quick - Tom’s bleeding everywhere!”: And he was!
I got a bowl of water and a towel and managed to locate the source of all the blood to his front left paw and did my first aid - apply pressure and elevate - well, as much as is possible with a panicked collie! The newspaper photographer came along with a first aid kit from his car and together we strapped up Tom’s leg firmly. We then phoned for an emergency vet and Bev took a much happier looking Tom off to the surgery in Kingsteignton. He had a two hour op to repair two severed tendons and the cut had been millimetres from an artery - ERK! you’ll be pleased to know that he’s now completely recovered with no limp to show for his experience.Apparently he’d been splashing about in the river and must have sliced his leg on a bit of glass?

Thanks to everyone who made the day such a success (you know who you are) and hopefully we’ll be doing it all again next year… Here's a picture of my son with his grandma. I had to bribe him with a pub lunch, but he was very helpful setting up on the day, putting up bunting (he's very tall) and doing the heavy lifting.

One of my new year resolutions will be to see how long i can keep up a daily blog. I think I'll make it a competition (as did a certain Badger) with prizes for fibreholics - at least one book, yarn and a pair of Peace needles which I will send out to the person who guesses nearest the date when (if) I finally give up the daily entry after January 1st.
Start guessing when you like!