10 October, 2015

Stick and Hooks

At this meeting devoted to Knitting and Crochet, Dr Angharad Thomas, a volunteer archivist at the Knitting and Crochet Guild’s collection near Holmfirth introduced us to the Guild (kcguild.org.uk/) and its work and then presented a "Trunk Show", ably assisted by Alex Rudkin another volunteer with the Guild. From the "Trunk" they pulled out a great selection of knitted and crocheted items for us to look at. This was followed by a period when members and their guests were able to don white gloves and examine these items at close quarters.

After an excellent buffet lunch, Dr Thomas spoke on her particular interest, two-colour gloves. She explained how seeing some examples of two-colour gloves, variously described as Yorkshire Gloves or Dent Gloves (that is the North Yorkshire village of Dent, not the manufacturers of that name), had sparked her interest in these. She showed examples from her own collection, including some that she had knitted herself, and then went on to explain how this had led her to researching the history of two-colour gloves and of knitted gloves in general. We were able to follow this process by the accompanying Powerpoint presentation.