Sunday 7 September 2008

I Knit Day 2008

Where to begin...........? It was an early start yesterday morning. I had to catch the 7:17am train from my local station to get a connection to London, in order to be at the Royal Horticultural Halls for the 11 o'clock start. I was all ready for my adventure. Map, tickets, sandwiches (made by Mr Josiekitten) and clean handkerchief, a large bag and, of course, plenty of money! I knitted on the train. My neighbour, after watching intently for sometime, finally asked me what I was knitting. "A sock!" I said, showing her. "That looks hard," said she. So then followed a brief lesson in sock knitting. I'm not sure quite at what point I lost her, but she didn't speak to me for the rest of the journey!

At St James's Park tube station, I quickly spotted fellow knitters, clutching maps and wearing their woolly 'showing -off my bestest knitting' garments. We headed towards the Horticultural Halls. It was very easy to know you were in the right place - a long queue with plenty of people (mainly women, it has to be said), many of them knitting. It made me smile, although I wondered what passers by would have made of it all! Before long, I was inside the hall. What an amazing sight! Imagine a sweet shop for knitters, with every kind of delicious squishable delight possible. It was hard to know quite where to go first!








I went to the Natural Dye Studio stall. They had their beautiful blankets as the backdrop. (Note to self - think about joining Bessie's blanket club.) There were baskets overspilling with Amanda's beautiful yarns. So of course, I succumbed!

I bought 2 skeins - (top) BFL Dazzle sock yarn in Camelia, and Angel - a baby alpaca, cashmere and silk mix. A pair of socks in this will make me feel like I'm floating! With my first purchase under my belt, it became much easier!

I spent far too much money buying yarn - but justified it because I was buying not only for myself, but also for my good knitting pal, Snoopydog, who wasn't able to go! So it quickly became 'one for me, one for Snoops', as the squishy packages got stuffed into my (luckily cavernous) bag! So here goes with my complete woolly splurge:

They are (from left to right), 2 skeins of Easy Knits bamboo mix, in Luau and Crystal Berry, 2 skeins of Misti Alpaca, in Maple Gray and Marino, 4 skeins of Indie Dyer Merino in As If and Treasure Trove, and 1 skein each of Madeline Tosh hand dyed merino in Chartres and Fyberspates sock yarn (not sure of exact sort or colourway, as no label!) Snoopydog and I will have fun deciding who is having what! I also had a bit of an impulse buy, and got myself a drop spindle, and some gorgeous merino roving from Moonspinning. Of course, I realised afterwards that I should have bought myself some much cheaper, undyed stuff to start off with, but the colours swayed me! And the name - summer sunset. I'm such a pushover! So I will have to put it to one side and practise before I let myself loose on this. In my mind I can see a pair of socks, in pinks, blues and purples. Maybe I will have a different view once I've been on the spinning day at my LYS! Watch this space! I also bought the latest edition of Interweave Knits. It's the first one I've seen, and I like it - a lot! A couple of little extras were the Keychain Sock Blocker Sock kits. I had to buy two, or I thought that Snoopydog might throw a hissy fit! Lol.

I also saw the Yarn Harlot. She was as entertaining as her blog is, and oh how true her words were! Afterwards, I joined the queue to get one of her books signed. The queue moved quite slowly, as she chatted with everyone! My turn finally came, and as well as having my photo taken with my first socks (I will have to check her blog to see if I appear!), I gave her my sock (I'd been knitting it in the queue!) for a photo, and she knitted some while I was taking the photo. How cool is that?!! I was grinning like an idiot for ages afterwards, thinking to myself, 'the Yarn Harlot has knitted a bit of my sock'!!!

Everywhere you looked, there were people knitting. There was wool of every colour imaginable.


I kept my eyes peeled for friends from the Angel Yarns knitting forum, but only managed to say hello to Susan Crowe, who looked fabulous in her purple top!
I saw the world's biggest knitting needles, saw the contents of a knitted house, chatted with the Dutch Knitters (and ate yummy stroopwaffles!) and found out about yarn shops in the Netherlands for our trip to Amsterdam in a couple of weeks, admired many beautiful hand-knitted garments worn by fellow I Knitters, smiled at the knitted Aliens and had a thoroughly enjoyable day!

Can't wait for next year!

3 comments:

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snoopydogknits said...

WOW! I'll be there next year! Love, love, love the scrummy yarns and.......oh my god, one of those little sock blocker key rings. Snoops is well peased!!!!!! Can't you tell? lol
Glad you had a great day.It looks amazing.

Susan @ Damn, Knit & Blast It said...

That was one hell of a fun day!