Yarn Shop Day 2016 - Wild and Woolly

Today was Yarn Shop Day, which is a chance to celebrate and support your local bricks and mortar yarn shops. I really believe that this is a truly worthy cause. Who wants to buy all of their yarn online without a chance to squish, sniff and gaze at it lovingly before deciding to take it home?
So, I made my way to Wild and Woolly in Lower Clapton to join in with their Purly Queens Pop up, which was basically a whole host of fabulous designers and dyers show casing their wares.  In attendance was Anna Maltz, Jane Lithgow and East London Knits Renee Callahan who all had samples of their designs to try on, which my Mum took full advantage of, as well as patterns to buy, kits, project pages and more. TravelKnitter and The Wool Kitchen were also both there with their gorgeous yarns for sale.

The shop was packed when we arrived, which isn't hard as it is a small space but it was lovely to see that so many people had turned out to browse, buy and simply sit and knit. As usual the knitting community welcomed everyone in and there was a lovely atmosphere in the shop, in fact people even began spilling out onto the pavement it was so busy.

Mum trying on the Seceles sample

After a while there was a quieter spell and Mum and I were able to sit down with a cuppa and a home made biscuit to review our possible purchases. In the end I came away with a skein of The Wool Kitchen 4ply in the Ground Control colourway.  This was from the David Bowie collection that Hannah had dyed up before Bowie had sadly passed away. Perhaps she had the inside knowledge on that one ;-) I also bought the pattern for Jane Lithgow's Broadlands Mitts which I just loved when I tried them on. Mum bought East London Knit's Klee Collection, the Seceles pattern and the yarn to knit it. Score all round.

It was a really fun afternoon filled with chatter and lots of squishing, sniffing and gazing at beautiful yarn and patterns.  I hope you had the chance to join in and visit your local yarn shop and if not, make sure you keep making those purchases in person rather than always online. Lets keep our yarn shops in business!

Where have I been?

I've been right here! 

I've still been doing my article in Knitting Magazine but found it increasingly harder to keep up with the blog while doing a full time office job, wrangling a now six-year old child and of course enjoying knitting. Excuses, excuses, right? 

I guess that the knitting blogger landscape also became incredible competitive and overwhelming. At times it has felt like I couldn't keep up, so why bother? But I realised that I shouldn't really need to compete with anyone. I love to write and I love to knit. Writing is such a wonderful gift that I shouldn't limit it. I also feel that I should exercise it to keep my writing in good shape. So here I am, where I've always been, but ready to blog again. Let's go.