i love london. it’s my favourite city in the world. so like the last years i spent some days there in autumn/winter. from 5th to 9th december to be precise. this year my boyfriend tim (= london novice) joined me.
we did all the london basics and a bit more: piccadilly circus, leicester square, trafalgar square, whitehall, downing street, westminster, big ben, london eye, westminster abbey, st james park, buckingham palace, tower bridge, tower, royal observatory in greenwich, camden lock market, spitalfields market… went to get really drunk with my english friend kevin and to see the musical „wicked“ (excellent)….
tower bridge:
view over the docklands from greenwich royal observatory:
view from trafalgar square down whitehall towards westminster/big ben:
big ben:
caro & tim are there:
leicester square at night:
60s christmas decorations at carnaby street:
regents street with christmas decoration:
and of course – why else would i post it here – i was up for some crafty mischief and checked out some knitting/crafts stores! this year it even was 5 shops! not bad, ey?
on sunday i met up with caroline (stagasaurus) who is a knitting pal i know from flickr. we met at iknit, did some yarn shopping and had a chat and a knit in a café (well more of a burger place) next door). caroline was working on transition gloves and i was working on basic socks for my dad. one english and one continental knitter 🙂
the husband/boyfriend were sent away to do guy things while we did knitter things 😉
now a little report about the 5 shops i visited in london:
iknit, waterloo –> link
lovely little shop with a wide range of yummy yarns. last year i bought 2 skeins of cherry tree hill solid sock yarn there and wanted to get hold of some more. was slightly distracted by those beauties though. it’s scrumptious dk, 45% silk, 55% merino and 220m/100g. caroline bought 3 skeins of the same yarn in a different colour… i’m curious to see what she’ll knit from it (and from my handspun berries skein i gave her for a present!).
all the fun of the fair, carnaby street –> link
tiny shop with all kinds of yarns, buttons, knit goodies and crafty bits and pieces. i bought a bag of „hand made with love“ charms for my knitted/sewed stuff there.
loop, islington –> link
i really liked this shop! it’s about the same size as iknit but a different selection of yarns. i always wanted to get my hands on colinette jitterbug yarn so i picked those lovely skeins. exactly my colours!! 😀 it was quite crowded when i got into the shop but the sales woman was very nice and helpful and there was a lively chitter chatter going on about ravelry, stoles and – what else – yarn. apart from the 3 colinette skeins i bougth a 3-pack of magnetic pattern markers. was looking for some of those for ages. now i won’t be losing track in complicated lace patterns anymore. yay. oh, and i got this lovely fabric bag with my shopping. i’ll be back!
john lewis, oxford street
john lewis at oxford street have a quite large yarn, fabric and haberdashery department and – coming from a country where knitting is considered to be just for grannies – i really enjoyed the range of crafty stuff, books, knitting kits, needle cases, sewing boxes etc. they have there. this is what i got there: breeze by kim hargreaves. 21 modern patterns. i’m especially fond of „georgie“ and „devon“. maybe the next big project…?
the handweavers studio & gallery, finsbury park –> link
they have a wide selection of yarns you can buy by the meter (or g/kg or whatever 😉 ). i was looking for unusual handdyed roving but they only had single coloured non-handdyed ones so i was a little disappointed. i almost bought some 25g packs of multi coloured silk, but reminded myself how badly spinning mulberry silk went. so i also gave that a miss and just bougth a wraps per inch/cm yarn gauge which i was looking for for some time.
so, boys and girls: london is worth a visit. have a look at the world class sights, have a look at the lovely yarn. and enjoy 🙂 xxx
