One women went to Knit Nation...
Aug 01, 2010
... and came home with many lovely things
Knit Nation at Imperial College in London was a great pleasure to attend.
Among the best things were meeting people I'd only previously spoken to online and the compliments from complete strangers about a knitted cotton top I was wearing.
It was Never Fails to Please from Jane Waller and Susan Crawford's A Stitch in Time and even Susan who was signing her new book seemed to think it was a good job.
I also met hat designer Woolly Wormhead and the lovely Ysolda Teague as well as having a good rummage around the fabulous range of yarns from mainly smaller suppliers.
But it wasn't just the big names - the place was full of happy and enthusiastic knitters who were keen to chat about yarn, projects, books etc with complete strangers, exchanging Ravelry names as they went.
Given I'm trying to close the doors on the stash cupboard I was trying to be restrained on the yarn buying side so only purchased a skein of black rainbow 4ply from Babylonglegs which will become a baby hoodie for the expected niece/nephew and some fab deep pink Knitwitches Seriously Gorgeous Laceweight silk/cashmere.
But then I won some Old Maiden Aunt turquoise 4ply along with some lovely rosewood needles, cable pins and seaming pins in the Medicins Sans Frontieres p/hop project's raffle.
If you don't know about p/hop;it is a charity fundraising scheme where knitters can download patterns or collect them from shows like Knit Nation and donate based on how they value the pattern. P/hop means pennies for hours of pleasure - and given the lovely patterns designers have donated to the scheme there is plenty to be had.
And if all that wasn't enough I also managed to attend an Advance Lace Knitting workshop with designer Anne Hanson which left me enthusiastic and confident and raring to go on more complex lace projects (family should be prepared for the scarf and shawl avalanche).
And then there were the lovely free books from my Knitting magazine subscription.
Great day out - well done to the organisers. I can't wait for next year.