I FOUND A KNITTING GROUP!!!

Yes, finally, after only TEN MONTHS of living in this desert-of-knitterly-activity I found a local(ish) group!! After making good use of the Buckinghamshire knitters forum on Ravelry (I don't technically live in Buckinghamshire, but I'm only just over the border, and it's closer than any of the Berkshire groups, which is where I technically do live). So off I drove to Marlow on Monday evening. Marlow is supposed to be really nice, but as I only saw it in the dark and mostly just a pub (plus a petrol station that had petrol 5p a litre CHEAPER than in Slough!!!!!) I can't really comment on the niceness of Marlow. But it was a very nice knitting group. Sue, who I "met" on Ravelry looked out for me (very scary walking into an unknown pub in an unknown place to meet an unknown group of knitters at the time of year when your glasses steam up as you walk into places) and there were six other knitters, whose names I mostly can't remember (not good with names, even when I haven't got steamed up glasses) but one of them was Wendy who came and found me on Ravelry the next day. Everyone was nice and friendly, and it was SO nice to be with some normal knitterly people for a change. And now I can't wait until next month for the next meeting!!

Then, the next day I had to go into London for a meeting at probably my least favourite place (not giving much away, but it's got a big dome on top) and then wrestle with the British Library to get my reader's pass renewed (more ID needed than to open a bank account...) before I headed over to the Royal Horticultural Halls (yes, the Iknit day venue!) to meet a friend for coffee and have a look at the Autumn Harvest Show.

OK. So the apples aren't a patch on the Yarn Harlot, but they're still pretty cool?! The pears are pretty cool too.

And these are the biggest onions I've ever seen. In a moment of extreme madness I volunteered to cook the Harvest Lunch at church at the weekend (80+ people...) and I'm thinking with an onion this size you'd probably only need one to feed everyone?

And then I walked back to Waterloo station via Iknit and bumped into Liz! Yay, lots of nice knitterly people!!

We have news from over the Pond! Big Monkey, who came to stay a couple of weeks ago, has arrived safely in his new home and is making friends already:

And Michele sent me some fab honey and yarn in exchange:

Wildfoote sock yarn. Yum. Which currently seems to be unobtainable in the UK as Get Knitted don't seem to sell it any more?

And this gorgeous skein, which is from Ranch of the Oaks and is called "zoo" yarn as it's a mixture of alpaca, llama and silk. And it's sooooooooo lovely.

And finally, these are the socks I knitted over the summer:

They're Cross-over Rib from Sensational Knitted socks, using naturally dyed yarn from Indigo Knits. I'm a bit sad as I knitted them for the Secret Prayer Sock Swop, and, although I know they've arrived (the swop organiser let me know) the recipient never got in touch to say thank you, which seems a bit off really. I'm trying to be charitable and think that something probably came up to stop her emailing, and, hey, the important thing is praying, not knowing what happened about it, but I can't help being a bit annoyed. I sent them off six weeks ago, so decided it was high time they got a picture on here anyway!

And I think that's all for now. The tank top for Noah is steaming ahead so I might even have a finished pic next time!