London Part 2, Iknit and the OMA trunk show

Finally getting around to blogging the rest of my London/Iknit trip. At the end of my last post, I had been sightseeing around London.

On the Friday, the Iknit weekender started. One of the big appeals of the IKnit event was the chance to take a class with Marjan of Yarnissma fame. Most of the socks I have knitted in the past are cuff down ones but I've been getting pushed into the direction of Toe up socks due to a combination of the Socktopus sock club and loving the look of Yarnissma's patterns. In the class Marjan explained the ins and outs of toe up socks and she also bought along all her sample socks. The sample socks were amazing to see - I have a couple of the Yarnissma kits so it was very inspiring. I completely failed to take any pictures of them however. I did finish my little sample sock



After lunch with some of the Gourock knitters and Catherine from the Glasgow group, it was back to shopping. Later on, I also got to meet up with Joy from Knitting goddess yarns and some of the other knitters from her Ravelry group. We all had a great chat and I got to catch up with Scully, who I have known for such a long time and haven't seen for a while. Some neighbouring knitters got enabled into Ravelry and Ysolda of Ysolda Teague designs wandered by too. I really love her designs so it was more than a little cool to meet her.

After all the shopping and chatting, I was only really up to relaxing on Ravelry and eating Sushi - two of my favourite things lol.



Saturday was yet another lovely day so I went off for a wander again before heading to Iknit. Piccadilly Circus was busy as always



I had more of a wander around Whitehall and Westminister. Lots of statues to see but sadly very few were of women. I did find one of Florence Nightingale.



And one to the Women of World War 2.



And then I was off to the Iknit weekender - the one and only picture I took there.



Once inside, I bought more yarn and some really brilliant buttons. I also finally managed to have a chat with Natalie from the Yarn yard who I keep missing at other events. Slightly ironic that we both travel from Scotland to meet there.



Speaking of the Yarn yard, I was also lucky enough to win some yarn in the P/hop raffle at IKnit. P/Hop stands for Pennies per hour of pleasure and is a fundraiser for Medecins Sans Frontieres, a rather excellent charity that provides health care in areas where its is really needed. I had a very interesting chat about their work that gave me a little to think about.

This is the yarn I won. Very me colours.


On the Sunday, it was time to head home but before heading home, I met up with another Raveler and travelled out to the Old Maiden Aunt trunk show at Socktopus. I met Lilith of OMA in my knitting group. She doesn't get the chance to attend these days but I do see her sometimes so I really wanted to go the trunk show to support her as I knew she was getting stressed about it. Also I've been a customer of Alice of Socktopus since she opened her shop and I couldn't miss the chance to meet her too and visit her shop, especially as she is moving to within Stash. We arrived a little early and thankfully Alice and Lilith let us in.

There were a lot of people keen to get in.



And then shop for mostly purple yarn



Carefully examine the yarn and eat Brownies and jelly beans



And just knit and socialise.



The trunk show was fab and it was great to met lots of people who I only know via Ravelry. Also I got the chance to catch up with another Joy from Crafty threads and yarns as we completely missed each other at Iknit. Alice is so lovely and I'm so glad I got to visit her shop before she moved to Stash.

I bought some of Lilith's yarn at the show, which is a little ironic considering that I live fairly near to Lilith's studio. But holiday yarn is the best sort.