Iknit Day

My posts are now going to be out of order. There is a half written Greenbelt one, but I thought I'd post the Iknit day stuff first, as that's what I've just returned from!

It was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London and featured lots of stalls (which I forgot to take photos of as I was too busy running round squeaking with excitement), giant knitting

workshops and the Stitch in Time fashion show.

I bumped into Heather and Rosie as soon as I arrived and saw Yvonne on the Knitting & Crochet Guild stand who I waved to in passing. Then I fell over Anne in the loos and tagged along with the Cambridge knitters to the Lindley Hall where the Yarn Harlot was speaking and where we queued in very British fashion in the pouring rain to get in!


She was a fab speaker - read her post here about walking round London and you'll get the idea of the things she notices and the humour. And maybe it made me appreciate London a bit more, I don't usually think too much about it, it's just a big place I live close to now and lived in for a couple of years. I actually loathed London whilst I was growing up and declared I would never go there for more than a quick visit, then somehow ended up with two University of London degrees and living in the centre of it, in zone 1 right behind Waterloo station...

And it was so amazing being in a room full of knitters - virtually everyone was knitting:

This was the row behind me, everyone knitting away and listening. I wish I could have done that through an Extremely Boring Meeting in a Big Hall I had to go to at work on Tuesday. I hardly took in a word there... It would have helped if they'd been talking about knitting rather than the Financial Situation.

I queued up for the Yarn Harlot's book signing with Anne (who was finishing off a wash cloth with this country on to give to her. She finished it just before we got to the top of the queue)

and Liz, who somehow managed to graft the toe of her sock whilst standing in the queue. As I'd missed lunch I wasn't capable of much more than standing in the queue by this point.

The Yarn Harlot signed a copy of the Secret Life of a Knitter for me.

I can't believe I didn't get more photos of stalls. Exercising supreme amounts of restraint I only bought a skein of Dazzle - Blue Faced Leicester 4ply sock yarn from the Natural Dye Studio. And that was for a present. This is a small flat so I'm on a book AND yarn diet at the moment...

I also bumped into Diane, on the Socktopus stall (VERY yummy) and Gemma and Sue in various places. I think that's everyone I met? Although some other people wandering around seemed vaguely familiar. I could have spent large amounts of money at Socktopus, Natural Dye Studio, Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Shop, Loop, Bowmont Wool and Fyberspates, amongst others. And I loved the Herdy stall too, after seeing the shop in Grasmere back in April.

So, am I the first person today to blog about Iknit?!