I Knitty Weekend

I am still recovering from a fabulous weekend in London , at the Iknit show weekend. Two days of yarn goodness and workshops!

Its great to go to something like this , where everyone openly admires the knitwear , and we all play Pattern bingo (Feburary Lady Sweater , check , Pinwheel sweater , check , Cookie A socks , check! lol )

Three of us from Flavaknits went down together , and met up with some of the girls from Tramway knitters at the event . We were a gaggle of schoolgirls , chatting non-stop even though we had been up since 4.30am on the Friday morning to get our early flight!

Thankfully I had finished my Noro Cardi in time to take it with me - it is so cosy and I love it . I will be wearing it out shortly !

The great thing about Noro is that it is better NOT to block it , as you lose some of the texture and shape . This one curls at the edges beautifully , giving it a great casual look , that looks good with jeans .

I just love the way it stripes too! This pattern was very simple , although it needed a bit of tweaking , and was great to knit at knit night or in front of the TV .

Its a winner!

Now I promised myself I would be good at the Yarn Market at Iknit , as I have a ton of stash back home just crying out to be knitted .

But I wasn't!

And yet , I could have been even naughtier...... if all that yarny goodness hadn't been so overwhelming!

Excuse the poor macbook photo's , my DS2 has pinched my batteries for my camera to use in his Nintendo Wii (Star Wars Lego is soooo addictive!)

From left to right , first up is Ysolda Teagues' Whimisical Little Knits book , which encouraged me to buy the gorgeous Manos del Uruguay wool classica yarn and Knitpro DPNS! Why ? so I could start the Icing Swirl hat ! (Still not finished , don't ask why , least said soonest mended etc. )

You can see the peak of the hat , its the dark teal knitting at the top right.

In front of the yellow Iknit ticket is the Skein Queen Cashmere and silk blend 2 ply in Teal , next to it is Easyknits alpaca/silk blend in a red colourway called O-negative . Just behind that is natural Merino/silk laceweight from Hammonds (have little pots of dye as I want to try dye-ing that!) Its not too easy to see as the button is hiding it!

Perched on one of my Knitpro DPNS is a large button in Ash wood , from Toft Alpaca , just lovely (as was their yarn!)

And the two little scrunched up bits of knitting at the front are the projects from my Estonian Knitting class , where we learned both multi-colour knitting and lace knitting .

It wasn't just all yarny goodness , the food was great too! Lovely little sandwich shop close to the halls was where we has lunch on the Friday (Joes Sandwiches) . And on the Saturday evening , we went to the Anchor and Hope pub where we had the most fantastic dinner , Venison Shank , Poached rabbit , Pumpkin Gnocchi...... and the deserts ! WOW! It was like proper home cooking! Kimmie tried the delights of the home-made Damson Gin too (the rest of us had the wine) . The staff were so helpful and pleasant which added to the experience.

It was such a great but exhausting weekend , I am just beginning to recover now , and my Yoga class helped too!

Now to start saving and training for next year!