2007 Stitch & Bitch Day - London

Note: It is really, Saturday 17th November. You will have to forgive me for posting this so tardily but y'know, I haven't even put my shoes yet away after my Vancouver trip - I am half unpacked, catching up on Other Things and feeling a bit half baked.

I like Gerard and Craig. Two more affable chaps you would be very hard put to meet across the whole of London. The fact that I get to go see them and hang out with other knitters every once in a while, because they run I-Knit, is simply one big, fat enormous bonus.

You know?

So I was very pleased that they managed to pick up their relaxed I-Knit Bonnington Square knit vibe (somehow) and unpack it intact at a big event in the centre of London. Pretty fluffing cool, if I am honest.

Please click for the Stitch and Bitch Day 2007 Flickr Group Photographs and below for a belated O.R.K. round up!

For atmosphere, there was the Shellac Sisters winding out atmospheric classics, Purl and Dean and the poet chap, who I missed because I was attempting to knit a red square for the Children's Society, Guiness Records attempt at the largest ever Christmas stocking...as you do!

I gave up when my knitting speed let me down and handed it on to Knitjitbiskit who complained that my tension was looser than her own. Quite right too. When you knit as slowly as I do, you have to knit big.














For worthiness, there was a charity/project/group awareness area where you could see the SnB knitted map, knit a red square for the Children's Society, a mini scarf for Shelter, sign up to knit tea cosies (St Johns Ambulance) or enter a competition to design a walking stick cover (Missibility). Yogic Knitter has lots more detail about this over on her blog - go see.


For information and a good splash of designer glam, there were workshops with Jean Moss, Jane Waller and Debbie Stoller. There was a Son of Stitch & Bitch fashion show to support the launch of DS's new book (which I bought).

Further, there was a workshop and book signing with the the authors of a new book for pet accessories. I just cannot remember their names. You see, just as an aside...

...I do not own any pets. Nor do I plan to waste good yarn of any description on any animal with an in-built coat. (Their fur?) If this has mortified all of you out there with pets, I apologise. Yes, I know that there are canines and felines out there who have evolved or been bred to be hairless. Tough - I do not plan to knit them anything either.

I am a slow enough knitter to prefer to focus on animals who don't leap up from licking their own butts, in order to race over and lick my face by way of thanks for their knitted gift - well, mostly.

That said, one of my best friends lives three doors down the road and she has two small dogs that she adores. Naturally, if I loved her enough, I would make things for her two little girls.

Ngg, please DO NOT draw her attention to this new pet accessory book. Else I will never hear the end of it and I will be petitioned. Endlessly.

Of course, now you are all going to do it, just so that I am obliged to eat my words and post pictures of dog booties on my blog. Ach, let's move this topic back to yarn loveliness:













Phew! Sanity restored courtesy of Starry Starry Knit, Army of Knitters and Yogic Knitter. Ok, for yarn, bags, needles and equipment, SnB day had the very best of Alexandra Palace (plus others I have not seen before) totally undiluted by chaff or the merely indifferent. Just the good quality things that people want to see: Purlescence, Socktopus, Knit Witches, Fyberspates, Natural Dye Studio, Easy Knits, Fluffenstuff, Hemp for Knitting etc.












I am not being sappy but what really made it for me though, was the knitters, all enjoying a totally chilled out I-Knit inspired vibe, in a friendly party style atmosphere, chatting and knitting. Yes, knitting - everywhere you looked. Knitting (or spinning). Either for themselves or for charity.

It made Alexandra Palace appear over commercialised, with the manouverability of a beached whale. If I am honest. Not that this will stop me from going to AP next year.

It is just that, like Alice and many others have stated on their blogs already, roll on SnB 2008!


P.S. I think that it's important to retain some self awareness and chuckle at how we are evolving as knitters in the blogosphere. There were cameras everywhere - it seems to have become a compulsion for us to photograph everything and everyone (for Ravelry/project records and to blog):




Question is, are we out of control?!










Don't ask me - I am beyond saving.

Yup, mine.











PPS: What would a good day out be without a spot of lunch with one's mother and friend (Yogic Knitter) followed a bit later by a splash of knitted tea on the way home, courtesy of All the Fun of the Fair?!