S. Worthen | Weblog

carmen_sandiego, geographer, knitter, and current houseguest, arrived safely this morning after facing the travails of standing for an hour in line to go through immigration. Much of the rest of the line was impressed that she had something to do in line and various little old ladies were downright jealous that she'd gotten her (bamboo) knitting needles on the plane without incident.

As knitting - and moving around enough to stay awake - were on her mind, I went with her for the beginning of her adventures with yarn in London. We started with the John Lewis on Oxford Street. I had no idea it had a crafts department! From there, we moved on to Liberty, which I have been assiduously avoiding since moving over here last week. Today's traipse 'round their fabrics, yarns, and bath goods reminded me why: not only is the building lovely, but so are many of their fabrics, and the use they put those fabrics to in clothing.

I left her heading west, off to investigate a yarn store in Putney. Apparently, yarn shops are rare these days in London, where the knitting fad which has taken over the US and Canada has thus far failed to make much of an impression.

On Thursday, we're both off to conferences, she to one on geography, and I to one on medieval astrology.