Lots of stuff

A lady, Penny, who attended my sock knitting class at Spin A Yarn  last week brought this fab Old English Sheepdog she'd knitted from a book called 'Best in show' to show us. I'm not a fan of knitted toys and animals but this dog is gorgeous. I just had to share it.

I was in The Cornwall Yarn Shop on Friday and Rebecca has copies of this book, 'Best In Show', for sale and it is full of gorgeous, very good looking dogs.

I've also not gotten around to blogging about my trip to London the week before last. I went up on the Thursday with a friend, Marianne. We had a lovely train journey with lots of chat and knitting. When we got to London we met my parents at the hotel in Islington. and went out for lunch. My Dad had business meetings so Marianne, my Mum and I walked to Loop, which is a gorgeous little yarn boutique. They stock some yarns not that easily available in the UK like Tili Thomas, Madeline Tosh and Wollmeise. I've been wondering what all the hype about Wollmeise was all about and i'm assuming it's all about the colours, which are amazing. It took me ages to decide which shade to get and i could easily have gotten several more shades. I ended up with this one:

I was also keen to pick up a skein of Tosh Sock from Madeline Tosh, having read about this yarn on lots of American blogs. The choice of colours was small and I ended up with this 'vintage pink' which i like but wasn't 'in love with':

I nearly got some Tili thomas too but managed to resist temptation. Loop was a really gorgeous shop but being rather spoiled with the brilliant Spin A Yarn nearby, which has a huge choice of yarn, I was a little bit disappointed. Loop is about the same size as Spin A Yarn but didn't have anywhere near the same choice of yarn but they did have some rather gorgeous, 'hard to get in the UK' brands.

We then  headed to the Marble Arch branch of M&S. We didn't stay long there and then walked on to Carnaby Street as Marianne was keen to visit a vintage denim shop, which turned out to be a big disappointment. We ended up going to several denim shops but none of them were any good. I was keen to visit 'All the Fun of the fair' which was much smaller than I'd imagined. They have  small yarn range and some gorgeous buttons. I bought this set of 'love hearts' buttons which i'm desperate to use on a cardi for myself, i think they're so cute.

I also bought this gorgeous paper clip.

Sorry about the out of focus photos.

 After a drink at a bar with very poor service we went to Liberty. The Rowan range there was fantasic. Seeing this wall of the full range of Rowan yarns in lots of colours was amazing. They also had some Regia sock yarn and my Mum bought a ball. After Liberty our legs were aching and we were getting tired so we decided to head back to Islington to find a restaurant. We walked to Oxford Circus tube station were one entrance was closed and hte others had huge queues to even get down the steps to the station so we walked to Bond Street instead. The tube in the rush hour is a nightmare and makes me so relieved I don't have to tackle that every day.

Back in Islington we found a Pizza Express and had to wait for a table. We had a lovely relaxing meal in a rather noisy, very busy restaurant. We headed back to the hotel for an early night.

The next day it was time for the Country Living Christmas Fair. I've never been before. Marianne used to go the Country Living Fairs regularly but stopped going a few years ago as she thought they'd gone downhill, so was a bit worried about how good this years fair would be. We were not disappointed, in fact it was fantastic. Lots of good quality arts and crafts on sale, including lots of designers/makers from the Orkneys. We did spend rather a long time in their section and Marianne bought quite a few pieces.

I had a long chat with Sue Blacker of Blacker Designs who runs a yarn mill in our neighbouring town. We've been to a couple of the same shows and her mill is 30 mins away from me but I've never spoken to Sue before.  It was lovely meeting her properly and chatting about yarn. Another local company, John Arbon, was there too. And Toft Alpacas had a stall. There were lots of knit wear designers there selling machine knitted designs. Cashmere was the 'in' fibre this year.

I didn't buy much at the Country Living Fair but I couldn't resist this cute box from Rose Cottage Boxes. I bought a small one and so did my Mum. Marianne got one of the big ones. It was hard choosing from theri gorgeous designs and I ended up with this one.

I'm planning to keep my buttons in it:

I also bought something for Em for christmas but I won't share a photo of that just in case she reads my blog. My Mum bought a few things but Marianne had the most successful day and came home with several bags. In fact it was a bit of a struggle to get them all back on the tube to Paddinton. She suggested getting a taxi but I was too worried about being stuck in traffic. The train ride home was relaxing and we all knitted a lot. My Mum came back from London with me. my Dad had left London in the morning to drive down to Southampton for a meeting and then drove on to Cornwall and spent the evening with Simon and the girls. My Dad was here for the weekend and my Mum was here for all of last week and left on Saturday.

On thursday we went to a fashion show organised by Spin A Yarn at the Devon Guild of Master Craftsmen in Bovey Tracy. Debbie Bliss was there and introduced some designs from her autumn/winter range. I didn't get to speak to Debbie (i was too shy to go up and introduce myself) but Alison Crowther-Smith who has written 'Little Luxury Knits', Claire Crompton (who's written The Knitters Bible and several other books) and Belinda from Knit Expo were all there and I talked to all of them as well as lots of knitters. it was a great evening with gorgeous food and lovely company. So nice to see so many knitters gathered. And I didn't take my camera, so no photos.