Saturday, December 01, 2012

Knitting in Knorwich

The picture from yesterday was taken standing outside The Forum in Norwich.  The Forum was built as a result of the horrible, catastrophic 1994 fire at Norwich Central Library (read this article if you love books; it's glorious) after which the old building had to be demolished.  The new one is, to my mind, somewhat nicer.

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They were putting in the Christmas trees yesterday, complete with fake snow.

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There was a craft show going on in the ground floor (which also houses the tourist information office and the entrance to the local BBC radio and TV stations); and couldn't help noticing that this year's Christmas decorations had a somewhat knitty flavour.

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All was revealed with an information board (slightly heavy on the commas, but actually informative!)

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All power to your elbows/wrists/fingers, Norfolk Knitters!

Another new development the Knitters of Norfolk will doubtless be happy about is a new yarn shop in the city centre, to join the very good stall on the market but catering for a different customer.  Popped in for a look after a tip-off from Sadie (who has just finished a gorgeous Kindle cover)...

It's on St Giles Street, which is just behind the Civic Centre.  I didn't want to stand opposite and fire a camera through the windows so here's an oblique shot...

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Things I noticed, other than that it's a nice, modern, Ravelry-savvy sort of place:

  • Jo Sharp yarns, three or four of them
  • Schoeller & Stahl Limbo (not the long-colour-change version but the solid colours).  They also had some of the lovely small balls of S&S baby yarn Sarah has at the Sheep Shop in Cambridge.
  • John Arbon yarns - the Knit by Numbers DK and the alpaca sock yarn.  They have a fair selection of the colours but not all.
  • Manos lace and the aran-weight one, in a small selection of colours.
  • Pony accessories.
  • Another make of baby wool I hadn't seen before, with patterns etc. - nice colours
They had other stock too, but I was just about shopped out by then; just picked up a skein of the Knit by Numbers I think will make a nice Christmas gift, had a brief chat with the very nice person behind the counter and wandered off for the bus.

Oh, and another shop I'm always happy to see is still alive and well, and celebrating 41 years in Norwich:

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They advertise themselves as "the oldest headshop in Norwich" - and they're still doing Spiritual Sky Patchouli incense in the maximum-strength version...  

3 comments:

Sadie said...

I'm sorry to have missed the knitted decorations, they look fab!

MrsAlex said...

Thanks for the lovely photos of Norwich - I spent hours in the children's library as a child, studied in the library and USAAF library as a student, then watched it burn and reported on it as a journalist. Haven't been back for years, so I'm really glad to see that the new Forum is well-used and obviously well-loved.

Daisy said...

Aha, I hadn't twigged that that was the site of the library!