alpaca blanket and last night's Retro Bar...

I've just finished this baby blanket. I think it is among the top 5 of my favorite knitted things. Not just because it's so simple!

There is a moss stitch border to the central stocking stitch panel, 110 stitches on 44mm needles - simple as that. I used Artesano Hummingbird 100% alpaca in Woodpecker. It's designed to be a thick sock yarn but I need a blanket. It is so soft that I think I might have to cover my pillow with it!

The colours are amazing, you can see the pattern is incredible! It came out all on it's own! People keep talking about why knitting is so popular at the moment - it's due, at least in part, to the amazing yarns available that not only look and feel great but they are exciting to knit with, too!

Gxx

Last night's knitting group met up at our favourite bar in London, Retro Bar, down George Court. This is our local when we're not knitting (even if it's not actually that local!), but the upstairs bar is a great place to snuggle up in the booths and get the needles out. It was a good laugh last night - we taught Phillip the barman how to cast on, cast off, knit and purl all while he was in between serving up the drinks!

I have a sneaky suspicion he's done it before because he picked it up like a natural! It's always great to meet new knitters and the best thing about the meetings for me is that it's got really nothing to do with I Knit London - - everyone just turns up and gets on with it, meets new knit mates and has a laugh. So, thanks to all the old and new faces who popped in during the night - as always a few hearty souls managed to knit all the way to last orders....

Ann, Donna (aka Dolly) and Jo

Tanja, who we haven't seen for a while, was there and I just had to share her ingenious double-magic-loop method for knitting socks. She said that she once knitted from the top down down but on one pair of extra long socks she got to the end of sock 2 only to run out of yarn. Since then she's knitted from the toe up, both socks at the same time from the same ball of yarn! The mind boggles but it makes so much sense - both socks will be the same length AND all the yarn is used up. I love it, and it probably eliminates SSS (second sock syndrome)

!

Craig
xx