Ally Pally and beyond

I've been looking forward to this weekend for a while now as the Knitting and Stitching Show (possibly better known as Ally Pally) has been in my diary for some months. I set off early yesterday to go on an organised bus trip. I like it because it's pretty much door to door service. I can knit on the bus and not worry about either driving into London or getting across London on the trains. Perfect! 

Although busy, I have seen it much crazier than yesterday. Perhaps now that the show is on for 5 days, the footfall is more spread out. I dropped off a load of yarn to the UK Hand Knitting Association who were collecting it for the charity Knit for Peace and had a chat with Juliet Bernard who was sporting a white coat and 'Yarn Doctor' name badge! Juliet co-ordinates all the Stylecraft Blogstars activities. I then did my usual 'up and down' the aisles, looking for anything of interest. I didn't go with a specific shopping list, but still came home with some rather nice treats. Three books - the latest Rowan book, a delightful Fair isle book (the 'easy' in the title sold it to me, as well as admiring all the samples there!) and a book of sock patterns which I had admired at Fibre-East back in the summer. Martin Storey was on the Rowan stand and very kindly signed my book for me. I felt a little bad interrupting his lunch but he didn't seem to mind! Three fat quarters of fabric called out to me - two kitty ones and one Christmas one. I also bought some sock yarn - 2 skeins of Socks Yeah! from Rachel Coopey. She has just brought out some new colours in the range and I loved the green. Debonnaire Yarns is another favourite and I couldn't resist a skein of sparkly speckled yarn. Finally a skein of sock yarn from Truly Hooked. The yarn is dyed by the same person who wrote the Sock Drawer book and she had a special deal on! I'm not one to miss out on a bargain!! When I'd finished my shopping and browsing, I went onto the Stylecraft stand to lend a hand there for an hour. It was so busy, I spent most of my time restocking the little cubbies with yarn. I also chatted with people about the new sock yarn, Head over Heels. It was fun to be a part of, but I don't know how they manage to do it for 5 solid days! Exhausting!

It's been a Happy Mail week here too. After dithering for a few weeks, I decided to order a book of mini patchwork projects from Love from Beth. I first came across Beth's designs at the Festival of Quilts the summer before last and I loved her style. In a recent blog post, she mentioned that people ordering her book would receive a pack of fabric to make one of the projects in the book until she ran out of packs. I was one of the lucky ones and have some rather lovely fabric (also designed by Beth) to sew a fabric dish. 

I  also received a skein of yarn from Laughing Hens - they got in touch with me recently and asked if I would like to do occasional reviews for them. Of course I said yes!! I knit some of the yarn on the trip to London yesterday and will report back later on it. But I will just say it's rather yummy!

Flo has been rather clingy today. Mr JK is away for the weekend running the Yorkshire marathon, and she is a daddy's girl! I was finishing off a project for the Stylecraft Blogtour coming later this month and she pounced on a skein. There's a video of her on Instagram if you want to take a look. Every ball and skein of yarn has to pass the 'Flo Squishability' test! 

I have lots of pattern writing to do over the coming couple of weeks, and with luck there will be a new sock pattern and perhaps more in a day or two. Pop back to see. xxx