This is my shifting sands from Grumperina, made in Rowan cocoon.
I just had to take a picture. This is soked fish risoto with prawns, mushrooms, peas and spring oinions. It's in honour of rosie, She makes amazing food, particularly risoto. I saw her this week and she starts a degree course in Bournemouth tomorrow. Have a great day my love.
You know how we all like surprises...well, yesterday when I arrived at the shop for the knit-night I discovered a shelf stacked with I Knit London's first ever exclusive yarn. Not only that, it was screaming "look at me, I'm gorgeous"! Last year for our Wednesday knit-night we met once at a bit of a dingy Sam Smith's pub in Soho called the Duke of Argyll - I always remember it because it was an odd meeting. First thing was that it was the first one Gerard had missed so I was going solo, secondly almost everyone who came was new - we'd already collected together a bunch of regulars by then but this night was memorable by their absence. But, from that one meeting we made three of our new best friends young Tom, Jackie (where are you?) and Jon (aka EasyKnits). It's worth pointing out that Jon wasn't EasyKnits when we met him, so we feel some responsibility for his new found purpose in life - although he's got more creativity in his little finger than in my entire body and he's been knitting since conception so maybe we can't take too much credit!
Last night's knitting group was another full house...nice to see, as always, some new faces and hopefully regulars to be. We polished off the chocolate cake, had a few ciders and it was lovely. Alice from Socktopus joined us with her friend - rudely I never asked his name, sorry! Alice will be joining Jon and all the others at SnB Day too with her Socktopus delights!
A few weeks ago we were visited by Marissa at Hodder books clasping a preview copy of Jane Brocket's gorgeous book The Art of Domesticity. G nearly wet himself. It wasn't even a book, it was just the proof copy pages - but even then it looked tasty. Now the book is due out it is a thing of beauty. We agreed that Jane should be part of the UK Stitch 'n Bitch Day, but before then she's coming down to the shop to have 'crafternoon tea', sign the book, share some inspiration, chat and be generally celestial and goddess-like. If you've haven't seen her blog take a look here - I always want to just crawl through the computer screen, like I'm entering another world - the photos themselves look good enough to eat!
These meetings, film nights, events at the shop have really made us proud about IKL. Our dream of a knitting shop and sanctuary (both parts equally important) have been realised. After only a year it's sometimes quite emotional to see that all the hard work, long days (and nights) and quite a few sacrifices have been worth it. The place really comes alive when it's buzzing with people, and we are so chuffed that it is a 'sanctuary' as well as a shop. We will be extending our knitting group nights to two days from next week, with a meeting on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and we'll always be looking for the chance to hold a crafty soirée or knitting 'do'...and in 2008 expect some exciting ones!
I've just finished my first tea cozy from the book of the same name (see earlier post). Isn't it brilliant. I can't wait to pour some tea for guests.
I was thinking of calling it Lorraine after my friend in Cork because she drinks more tea than anyone but I thought that might just be wierd! I love the book, it's been really popular, too!
Gxx
IKL from 6 as usual for those who miss the Wednesday. This means that film night (left) finds a new home on a Friday - which seems like a perfect start to the weekend. We've had some good films in the last few weeks, but numbers dropped - probably because they weren't too well known - but it's always a good night, and genuinely relaxing (if you can sit down that long. Ouch). We kick off with The Talented Mr Ripley on Friday 4th October...which links nicely to the book group, another new venture!I put my hand up and admit that I haven't read a book for almost TWO YEARS! I know, shame. I got bogged down in a biography of Arthur Rimbaud and, being an anally-retentive, pedantic geek I felt I couldn't start another book until I'd finished that one. Mmm. Well, thanks to Ravelry we discovered a desire for a knit-friendly book group and offered ourselves up as a venue. We can't take any credit for it, but we're really excited to host it, on the last Tuesday every month, and I have just finished the book (The Cry of the Owl, by Patricia Highsmith - that's the link to Ripley, by the way, if you didn't get it). We're called The Kniterati and anyone can come along. We've put a page on our website to keep folks up-to-date with meetings and books. It has dawned on us that in order to have 'a life' we need to include everything we do into IKL - that is our life, and pretty much everyone we know we've met through the knitting group, some great new friends and some brilliant times.
Sadly, in amongst all this shuffling around something had to give...and it was the Friday night men's night. I think we're both proud that for over a year we hosted the only dedicated knitting group for men in the UK (?). We were never trying to make any kind of statement, we were just offering a place to go and enjoy a few drinks without those weird looks - believe me, we still get them, and unless you've been a part of ANY minority group it's probably quite hard to understand that feeling of freakishness you get when fingers are pointing. Happily, we've always enjoyed being freaky. We never thought we were different, better or worse than anyone else but the men's nights have been some of the best knit nights I've had, and, again we've made some close friendships that will last. Next Friday, 28th September, is the last ever. Join us if you can, whoever you are and whatever you've got.
One more thing to mention before I go and lie down (on my right-hand side, ouch) and it's these two books... 
And, very finally, if you didn't think they were cute, you surely will this...a new pattern from Artesano's Hummingbird range this papoose is possibly the dinkiest, cutest and most adorable thing I have ever seen. Baby not included...
This is the medal I got on Saturday! I ran through a cold, got lots of asthma which helped the lurgi get a little stronger.
Anyway, one of our must-haves was Jamieson's of Shetland. I spoke with Peter yesterday about another large order, and I am really pleased that their stuff does so well. it proves there's a market for it and that, depite the number of knitting books recommending the big names, savvy knitters know that there's more out there. I always like calling them too, sometimes you even get the kids answering the phone and it brings it all home to me that they are genuinely independent, family yarn producers. I love that! I was actually calling because, as some of you must know, there's a new Simply Shetland Book on the way with Eunny Jang's Autumn Rose Pullover. I am honestly thrilled that such a high profile pattern is using Jamieson's, opening up their yarn to a whole new bunch of knitters! Their stuff has always been huge in the US and it's about time we appreciated it more in it's home country!
third set of bootees, and has just bought Zoe Mellor's 50 Bootees to Knit book...so another 49 will be heading up to new nephew in the coming months. I do believe Louis will be the most spoilt (knitting-wise) baby EVER!
Tonight was the film night (we showed the original Hairspray) and, again, it was great. We finally met with Justine too, who has been organising, via the omnipresent Ravelry, a book club for knitters, which we agreed tonight we would host at IKL. Funnily enough we thought of hosting a book group last year just after we opened, but couldn't decide if knitters had time to read (!), and then once all our evenings filled up the idea waned. We were also slightly reticent to take someone's idea away, so it's not an I Knit book club, although it'll be here once a month, and the name will be decided soon. I'm actually really looking forward to getting into it. I haven't read a book in almost two years - shameful. But what with running the shop, full-time job, knitting dos and now Facebook and Ravelry I just don't know when I've got time! So, basically having someone organise for me what I'll read and when is brilliant. The first book is Patricia Highsmith's The Cry of the Owl and the first meeting is on 25th September. Can't wait!
Well, we reached the last month of our inaugural sock club this week. We must apologise for not getting it out first thing in August but we hope everyone in the club has got their third package by now and is suitably excited by it. This month's climax was courtesy of Jon at Easy Knits who we've been banging on about for ages, who is a good mate, but also a damn fine knitter and dyer. His sock yarn is somehting special and we hope that the sock clubbers agree that we saved the best til last - not least because you are the only people in the whole wide world who have that yarn! Do feel free to leave us feedback here on the sock club and the three designs that were prepared exclusively for us - huge thanks to Jon, Esther and Sue who provided those. And, if you missed out this time we have decided to continue with the sock club, and you can sign up at anytime to receive your three months worth of fabulous footwear. If you don't think you can handle a whole sock just yet....then join our sock knitting for beginners starting next Saturday (18th), with, yes Jon again (he really can do everything). 
So, this weekend was the Innocent Village Fête in Regent's Park. We couldn't make it on Saturday (some of us have jobs to do and shops to run!) but yesterday we went up to town and had a great day out. I don't know about where you were but it was such a hot day I did have a bit of a struggle to really enjoy the festival itself, so we spent much of lounging on the grass and drinking cider (nothing new there then). We also had a go on the chairoplane (above) and, of course, made it to the knitting tent. The latter was a personal disappointment, not least because it was more of a shop than a place to just sit down, chill out and knit, although there was plenty of free teaching going on, something we wholeheartedly agree with - we may hold full-on 
classes in the shop but we certainly don't mind passing on the secrets of casting on and off for free in the IKL Wednesday knitting group. It was great to see the little knitted hats on the Innocent bottles though, and this year's campaign should be bigger and better than last year's now that Rowan have got in on the act. The whole fête this year was bigger than ever before and with that comes the corporate angle - but we like Innocent, and they did seem to try their best not to 
'sell out' too much. It was a bit weird, though, to see, amongst all the organic food stalls, the stands from eco-friendly, ethical companies and the Innocent drinks themselves, proudly packed full of nothing but natural stuff, the huge Red Stripe tent...probably the worst lager in the world! Nice and unnatural. Still, we did catch a glimpse of some maypole dancing (we missed the ferret racing though) and enjoyed watching the alfresco ballroom in full swing to the tune of Cut A Shine. 
There was also this brilliant paper Forest - nicely branded by The Guardian :)
Quick, it's sunny, get outside! At the Wednesday night knitting group we spilled out onto the pavement and enjoyed a few bottles of organic cider on a balmy summer's eve. For a few hours it wasn't London, it was St Tropez. OK, maybe not, but it was lovely, and the square, as I always go
on about, was certainly one of the nicest places to be in zone 1 of an evening! Wednesday nights are still my favourite night of the week and I even gave myself a little time to knit instead of working. It was great to see the place full of knitters, new faces and old, getting on like old pals. Ah, the unifying power of knitting (and cider)! It felt good. One sleeve to go and the cardy's finished...only I've just gone and lost the bleeding pattern!
This hot spell has gone to Gerard's head a bit and with the autumn edition of KnitSimple magazine arriving yesterday he's done two hats in two days...ready for the cold weather! I'm not quite decided on this little number, in (Colinette Point 5 Zebra), especailly the long tassel at the back, but I do prefer the one below in Rowan Big Fusion. And it's true what the mag says: 2 hour hats! Either that or Gerard is just dead quick.
It's now about 8pm on a Friday and the boy's night is in...err...full swing. Well, we've settled into a small but committed group of knitters, but there's a couple missing tonight. Boys...where are you? The omnipresent Tom is here (left), and although he admittedly comes for the gossip and the booze, he's a lesson to all those who say you're too old to learn new tricks (although he did learn to knit about 60 years ago, he just took his time getting round to finding his groove!). Funnily enough G and I have downed needles, I to write this blog, and G to flick through the book of chocolate recipes (b'day pressie from Jon) - he's going to make us all a big cake! Hurray.
Dear reader, you may or may not know that we have what we call a 'men's knit night' every Friday here at IKL. Now, I know for sure that some folk just think this is plain misogynistic, some think it's divisive and some just think it's weird. But, it's undeniable that, because we've got an extra couple of balls in our stash we do get looked upon with suspicion and are considered eccentric in some quarters! Don't get me wrong, we don't think we're any different from any other knitters and we certainly don't think we're special (well, not for just being men any road). We first noticed the phenomena at the Sunday market stall last year where the sight of a couple of men (with beards too!) caused hysteria amongst some of the punters. Anyways, there is still a stigma attached to the male knitting thing, sadly, so we hold the boys' night to encourage those hiding away behind their machismo to get out and get crafty.
We get asked (more often than you might believe) just what exactly goes on at an IKL men's knit night - it's really the same as what goes on at any other IKL meeting. Drinking, especially. Possibly a bit more bitching than usual though, and of course loads of talk about football ;). Plus, being blokes, the gadgets come out as often as we can get them (top picture, Neil gets to grips with the knitting machine). Last night we 
were in gadget heaven, joined by the delightful Drew and Tom from Current TV who picked up on the men knitting thing and came along for a spot of filming - look for us soon on a TV near you! Drew got well into the whole thing (here he gets some tips from Jon on how to cast on), and went off into the night a new knitter...
