I Knit Day, part 2

More photos.

But first - Anne and I appeared on the Yarn Harlot's blog!! Scroll down for the "washcloth" part of the parade - thanks, Anne, for letting me accompany you and your washcloth...

And here's a photo taken by the lovely E-J of us meeting Stephanie - this is possibly the best one as neither of us look too actively deranged or stalkerish at the time...

Also, note Stephanie's co-ordinated Manon and waterproof jacket. That's classy and shows forethought. E-J's also managed to capture Gerard checking in at the bookstall, illustrating how much both of the I Knit guys were darting around on the day making sure everything stayed organised, and it really did, so much so that you didn't really notice (except for noticing how fast they were moving around the place)...

The rest of the photos (of shopping) are less good - we're getting into the time of year where I don't get much natural light at the best of times either side of the working day, and the weather yesterday (all weekend, really) was atrocious. So imagine these yarns and then please think of the colours as 2000% nicer. The only as-yet-unphotographed item (I'd cast on socks onto them by the time I got home) was a set of Quills 3.5mm DPNs from Gill at Woolly Workshop which was the second thing I bought. The first thing I bought was this, which has photographed almost spectacularly badly; a skein of Fleece Artist Somoko - no idea what the colourway is (anyone who's bought this - is it always a one-skein-0f-a-kind yarn?), but it's much more autumn-leaves in dark woods than this somewhat... turdish... photo shows.

I have another skein of this, bought at The Naked Sheep in the Beaches in Toronto (appropriately enough) in May, which is in less neutral but (my spidey-colour-sense tells me) toning colours (the other skein's in the sock-yarn-bin in the attic) - so I'm thinking some sort of ripply long scarf. These days, I have to wear suits for work, and as my suits are, like the rest of my wardrobe, mainly black, making nice long scarves in atypical colours is fun...

I was then Good for a long while; until about 6pm, actually. Then I made my way among the leavings of the Serious Shoppers, and found this:

Yes, the name sold it to me as much as the colours

Haven't encountered this one before. In fact, the basic yarn has a real resemblance to the Blackberry Ridge yarn I bought for E-J's baby's shawl, baby now being newly 2 and having opinions of her own (the yarn's definitely a heavy laceweight, very slightly slubby in places. Not my usual colours, but I seem to be starting to branch out...) I'm likely to make one of these out of it.

[I'm also realising that at the time I bought the yarn for Baby M's shawl, Woolly Workshop was the only place I knew in the UK which had any sort of laceweight, and Gill hadn't then started carrying Zephyr as a plain lace yarn. How times have changed... it's stunning, really, both in terms of what's available and in terms of the knowledge of what's available.]

I'd been quite moderate, really, until then. But then right at the end of the day I saw these in a bucket under the table at Loop, which had been concealed by shoppers and queuers until then;

these are for a Jeanie and I was actively looking for 3 skeins of sock for that.... It seems to be my Misti Alpaca Year. The last skein I acquired passed through the hands of Laura Chau who was at the till on my visit to Lettuce Knit (she was apparently at I Knit Day too but I didn't spot her); the ones before that were bought in Montreal...

I'm not going to Ally Pally this year. Saturday was such fun, and I felt I was walking among friends every minute of the day. And nobody raised the classic Ally Pally Art-Versus-Craft Debate ONCE. Knitters knit (and of course, crocheters crochet). That's what we do. Some people, when you say "what are you making" will haul out the pattern; some people will say "well, it's basically [name of pattern] but I'm making it shorter"; some people will say "well, it's sort of [name of pattern] but I'm working it from the top down, making it scoop-necked, and I don't think I'll be doing the ribbing; I'll see how much yarn I've got left for the length of the sleeves; some will say "well, I think the pattern I made and charted myself is going to work in this laceweight" (diviknitty raise a hand); some will say "I'm making it up as I go along"; and some will simply say "I don't know yet" (caughtknitting is my personal fave in this category)...

And most knitting and crochet groups have everyone all together, stick-wielders and hookers, obsessionists and occasionalists, and nobody cares whether we're making art or craft.

The Art-Versus-Craft Debate always raises its head at Ally Pally, and just for once, I'm tired of fighting that battle, and even watching that battle being fought from the sidelines... Saturday was just about perfect (the bits which weren't are the responsibility of the train company and whoever you choose to blame for the weather); that'll do me.

I Knit Day, part 1

Well, the day was amazing. The Royal Horticultural Halls are spectacular (and I'm slightly outraged with myself that I didn't take more pictures of the architecture of this one which was pure 1930s); and there were knitters everywhere... There were people from all over the country, some of which I hadn't seen for a couple of years (since SkipNorth 2007 in several cases), and a lot of people I'd been at I Knit nights with last week, and about a dozen of us from Cambridge all told. We were delayed on the train (although thankfully they were still running - people coming down from Yorkshire and points north had less luck because of the flooding) so by the time we arrived the place was heaving; shopping was done a little later in the day because the crowds round the stands were several eager shoppers thick! The pic above was taken during the fashion show for Jane Waller's A Stitch in Time, which was wonderfully and humorously presented...

The Lindley Hall was also very beautiful when we all filed into it for the Yarn Harlot's talk; I didn't realise when I took this general photo of people arriving that I know virtually everyone in this particular shot, from several different places!

Two more of the Cambridge contingent, blogless Sue [bigrainbow] and E-J [roseanglaise], waiting in eager expectation...

Gerard did the introductions...

Stephanie took the customary photos - I've seen so many of these on her blog in the past, and it was very funny a) watching it being done b) watching half the audience photographing Stephanie and the sock photographing half the audience. (Annie Mole had a great rant on her blog last week about the stereotypical image of bloggers and their sad and lonely lives, which came back to me while all this was happening).

The talk was wonderful - funny, witty, observational - which I'd sort of expected; and also packed with scientific fact, which for some reason I hadn't expected quite as much, despite the amount of care and research which goes into Stephanie's books... Cambridge didn't come out very well in the talk, due to an MRC study (I think probably this one) which used people tapping keyboards as their repetitive activity rather than actually knitting... Anyway; I came out feeling very happy (and healthy) to be a knitter...

Afterwards, Anne (MrsNiddyNoddy) and I went and queued with Katie [daisydaisydaisy], to get books signed and meet Stephanie in person... Anne had made a Great Britain washcloth, and we felt obliged to confirm the existence of Cambridge knitters!

We had a little chat, aware of the hundreds of people queuing behind us; I handed over some yarn I'd dyed as a 'thanks-for-the-blog' present - I've been reading since this post and in my old job, often reading the blog was the brightest point of the day; Stephanie signed and chatted and we moved on... it was really lovely to meet her.

At that point my camera batteries died, but Anne got this great picture on her phone

and I got batteries back into it in time to take one of Katie's book being signed...

Shopping was then done. I haven't photographed the shopping yet, so that'll be part 2. Fashion shows were watched (Gerard was the first model on the Erika Knight catwalk).

Socks were finished (more on these later), and wine was drunk in the downstairs bar.

Getting to King's Cross and finding nothing was moving due to a problem at Finsbury Park was a bit of a dent to the good mood; but E-J and I picked up gin and tonic at Cambridge station and consumed it in contravention of many railway by-laws while waiting for the next train.... Where I met Susie [susieknits] again, also on her way back from the day!

The last time we met was also on a train, in April, with Susie's friend, also called Susie, who kinneared me... One of these days we'll actually get to meet in ways not engineered by First Capital Connect!

A wonderful day

I Knit Day was utterly lovely. It took a Very Long Time to get home; something burning under a bridge near Finsbury Park, allegedly.. So more tomorrow.... but thanks to Gerard and Craig at IKnit for providing a fantastic day; and to Stephanie for exceeding (already ridiculously high) expectations...