aren't they lovely?

Thank you all for your comments. I know I'm part of a community of brilliant people and I appreciate your support and sentiment. I'm sure the person who took the hat was not a knitter. How could they be?
This is a picture I took on Thursday night. Aren't they gorgeous?! We had a special visitor from the North. She brought good tiding and fabulous hand made wood buttons and shawl pins. Chris, just at the end of the table with short hair and teal sweater and a raised arm, is just gorgeous, she runs A Fine Yarn, a wool shop in Darlington.

Gxx

Animal alphabet...

It was another busy knitting group on Thursday night, with the usual stuff going on, including the consumption of cider and the sharing of a few tips and ideas....we also started our IKL Polaroid photo gallery which you can see adorning the walls of the shop very soon. You can be included too, all you need to do is come to one of our knit nights! Welcome back to Jon, too, who we haven't seen in a while, so busy is he with making more of gorgeous Easy Knits yarn. At the end of the night we all tried to work out the conundrum emblazoned on Justine's chest:

Leave your answers here! We're stuck on X, and N...?

{EDIT}...and for bonus points...which one is the odd one out, and why?

Weirdos at The Water Poet...

Last Wednesday we were knitting once again around London town - this time the pub was the cavernous Water Poet up by Spitalfields, which proved quite tricky for some to find - even G was ringing me at the shop asking for directions! I don't know about you, but I always find out where I'm going before I set off...?


But it was a good 'un. Early on we had a visit from a Belgian TV crew (will add picture later when Blogger is less temperamental) and we had some new boys learning too (above right). Go on lads! Jenny, in the same pic, put forward an idea about starting a group at her Uni, and we're up for that...more news as and when it happens. The other pic is representative of every knit night we have - a bit of knitting and a pint of beer. Perfect.

In fact, the Water Poet seemed a perfect location. Massive place with plenty of space, light enough to see your stitches and a good selection of booze. It all went a bit sour when the lights dimmed...but we asked nicely and they obliged, although the barmaid did say 'we have to think about the atmosphere' - as G said, we were the atmosphere! Anyway, when she raised her eyebrows and called us 'weirdos' I thought it was hilarious.....sadly, we probably won't patronise them again.

Cx

Bye-bye boys' night...but hello to bog roll covers and book groups...

Hello everyone...yes, I am still in the land of the living, although my bulging discs have slowed down my socialising somewhat I am satiated with my current diet of internet, daytime TV and quiz shows. Physio continues but no real improvement (although I've come off the painkillers at last). If only sitting down was possible rather than having to spend all my time lying on my right-hand side, which restricts activity just a bit. Anyway, thanks to m'colleagues at the National Theatre who sent me these gorgeous flowers (and choccies too, not pictures cos they didn't last long enough!) They are beautiful, but I daren't get too close as, mentioned in the last post, sneezing is like stretching my sciatic nerve the entire length of my body. Ouch.

Readers of the newsletter will have seen that there's a-change a-coming at I Knit London, with a shifty around of our knitting group night and other stuff. It's all down to 'popular demand', honest! The Wednesday night meetings at the shop are getting very popular and we realised that meeting on the same night every week left some people with no chance of experiencing IKL...and that's just not fair is it? So, we'll still be having the fortnight in the pub (if anything just to keep G & I sane - we've spent more time in the last year in the shop than we have at home!) finding all the best alehouses for knitting, and we'll also be at IKL every Wednesday in between. No change there, but from 4th October we'll be having it on a Thursday too. Every Thursday at 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...

After the phenomenal reaction to the Jean Greenhowe booklets we chose Tea Cozies as our 'book of the month'. It's gone down a storm. I am now realising that for all the overstyled Rowan magazines, the glorious Erika Knight (love her!) books, the expensive hand-spun silk yarns and the unfathomable-but-beautiful Victorian lace shawl patterns there's a whole host of us knitters who just like the simple things in life - and what could be cozier, more English and more useless (which makes it a must-have in my book) than a cozy for your bog roll or a woolly jumper for your teapot? Gerard's messing with nature and knitting this sheep cosy (below) with alpaca, and Tom hasn't lost a fight with a very small Tommy Cooper impersonator, he's actually modelling the very latest in 'crocheted top hat toliet roll cozies'.

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...

We're men, and we knit...

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...


...and for those still to be convinced, look at our stack of empties at the end of the night (left). Proof, if any were needed that we are real men and we knit and it's nowt to be ashamed of!

Don't worry ladies...you are always welcome, even on a Friday (but, be warned, there may be an overwhelming amount of testosterone in the air....)


Craig