The WWKIP day was wonderful. Although the weather was too fickle for us to have our planned picnic, The Royal Oak accommodated us easily and provided plenty of lush pimms and coffee. The oxford bluestockings were out in full force with inspiring projects and fabulously comprehensive knitting knowledge. I got a very helpful tutorial on the long-tail cast-on from Ellen which she let me photograph for reference, and everyone helped me identify the various stitches comprising my latest charity-shop find and I’m confident that if I was ever going to make one myself out of a nicer yarn, I’d be able to figure it out with the help of the others.

Katie’s impressively technical fairisle/cable project seems to have been worked out entirely from looking at the original garment and photographing it… no pattern exists apart from some photos, hand-coloured charts and notes. I’m impressed by the bravery of it all. My own toe-less cotton socks are nearly finished and were only slightly hindered by the fact that the notes I make when I adapt a pattern I make notes that don’t resemble reality at all. ‘Lies! Lies!’ I cried a few times, when in following my own instructions, I found I was going wildly astray. I guess it is fine to make it up when you go along if it is a once-off thing like a muffin or a beetroot, but some sense of what you did the first time round does help if it’s a matching pair of socks you’re planning to create… Luckily Liz was able to help out with counting my rows.

I was very inspired by Liz’ knitted smoothie hats and wondered how she had found the time to make them in amongst all the baby clothes, socks and other knitted wondrousness. I can only assume that she made these in her sleep.

Ellen pointed out that one of the less attractive points of the heat however is the yarn/bamboo needles/sunscreen/sweat sensation that accompanies the knitting of summer months; my strategy for this is to concentrate on knitting with bamboo or cotton and to make myself some kind of giant hat so that I can avoid sunscreen (which I hate.) I might have to ask Lara how she made her black and white one…