It was lovely to welcome back so many people to the Knit & Knatter meeting this morning. Often the focus can be upon the knitting or sewing but the nattering is equally important. What have we been doing over the summer, I wonder?
Other than the North Coast 500, there have been trips far and wide: Colchester, Inverness with the obligatory possible evidence of Nessie, Dundee and Yorkshire but more trips are in the planning: to Chester and up to Dingwall and down to Fort William. Of course today is a Bank Holiday…in England but not in Scotland. Whereas England have 8 Bank Holidays, Scotland gets one more! Here’s a good lookup for those Bank Holidays. Interestingly one Bank Holiday is Victoria Day, in memory of Queen Victoria which is held on the Monday before or on the 24th May. It can be known as the Queen’s Birthday holiday which gets confused possibly with the one in April and June!
Then of course we have the Glasgow Fair and the long September weekend. In Scotland each city had its trades fortnight when the tradespeople took their holidays. In Glasgow this coincided with the Glasgow Fair, an annual event, held since the late C12th when the Bishop of Glasgow was granted the right to hold an annual fair by King William I. This long established event became Fair Fortnight after the Second World War and is still going strong in the C21st.
The long September weekend is typically not a bank holiday but we might find the schools having the Friday and Monday off as well as the banks. It was at the end of the farming year, at Harvest, when the staff might be hired or sadly fired at the end of the growing season. It could also be the time that staff were paid, and they duly spent some of that money at the local markets in Lanark, Wishaw and Hamilton etc. These dates for the long September weekend alter across the country as per the Scottish climate. And next year we will all have the 26th February as a bank holiday to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
COP26
During the first fortnight of November this year Glasgow will become the focal point of the world’s desire to make the necessary changes to affect Climate Change. The local churches are planning to make bunting and an indoor banner which can be used in Woodlands Methodist Church, as that is the focal point for the Methodist Church of GB. We wondered whether the banner might include recycled materials. There was discussion of using an old church curtain as the backing for the banner! In a recent poll:
More than two in three people polled said they had bought fewer clothes to cut down on waste in recent years, while half reduced their vehicle use and consumed less meat and dairy.
Guardian
Many felt that the UK government should be doing more to address the climate crisis, even if it leads to higher prices, although the average annual savings of greening a home are estimated at about £1,780 a year, meaning owners of older properties would only reap financial benefits after 14 years.
There was discussion of making a ‘statement’ by knitting using plastic bags as yarn. Some had looked to re-utilise old stones reclaimed from previous DIY projects within the house, rather than use wood, to edge a garden.
Her is a pattern for knitting hearts as bunting, and the pattern that Mandy uses with hearts touching one another.
The EcoCongregation resources can be accessed here. The website for the Methodist Church involvement at COP26 in Glasgow is here.
Looking Forward
We are looking to now meet every fortnight, and so confusingly we will meet next week (!) and thereafter fortnightly. We are still on Facebook and busy doing crafty things at homes. We are looking to see if we might get speakers on Zoom who can discuss, even possibly show us, how people weave and spin today. Also Dalgarven Mill was recommended for a local place to explore lace making.
The Netherton Craft group is meeting up on Monday 13th September at Netherton Church and will meet weekly. Here is their Facebook page for further details.