Maidstone Knitters ...!

The inaugural meeting of Maidstone Knitters (me, Hazel Knityoga and Jan Knitsmith) yesterday at the Muggleton Inn in Maidstone – you can read all about it on Hazel’s blog (and with much better pictures, along with a yummy sounding pudding!) here. The pink champagne is courtesy of Hazel … and the blurry picture of Jan is in no way causally related … ;)

In other bits and pieces, I have finished Emily’s blue boa, and a pink eyelash scarf for John’s ex-MIL (for which I got paid – oooh, does that make me a professional knitter?!) and have now embarked on a scarf in Sirdar Zanzibar (which you can see rather blurrily in the foreground of the picture with Jan and two glasses of pink fizz) – I’m finding that scarves are a good way of trying out yarns to see how they knit up (slightly more interesting than tension squares anyhow). I’m not quite sure about this yarn – it’s beautifully soft, and the lurex carrier thread gives a pretty effect along with the gently varied colours – but I’m not entirely convinced that the random patches of tinsel are such a good thing, and it’s incredibly easy to knit fluff instead of the carrier thread … hmmm.

Following the meeting, wandered along to the local art shop to check out their stock of glass beads, as I fancy having a go at making some fancy stitch markers, but didn’t like the ones on offer, so a trip to the bead shop in Covent Garden will have to be fitted in some time over the next few weeks. Found a couple of knitting books in a charity shop (all 80’s with wide shoulders, always good for a laugh as in “did we really wear those?” to the accompaniment of much sniggering - one of the pieces de resistance in this book was a pair a of ribbed leggings in mustard colour - I kid you not!), and found a much-reduced furry bedspread for £30 (originally priced at £80) in Woolworth’s – have wanted one of these for ages, so snapped it up as a real bargain …!

All in all, a really good day out, and lovely to meet up finally with Jan and Hazel! - let's hope to see some more knitters next time (today Maidstone, tomorrow ... Maidstone!)