Last Saturday I packed some knitting and two boys and headed off to Flat Planet in Central London to join in the Love Knitting/Knit for Peace World Wide Knit in Public event. 

We couldn't get there early so everything was already in full swing when we arrived. To be honest it was a little daunting walking into a cafe full of chatting people who I didn't know, with the hope of joining in.

Then I remembered that these aren't just people, these are knitters.  

A simple, "Do we just find a seat?" led to people shifting up, others changing chairs and the three of us were all sat down together, a little snug, but happy. The boys were amazingly well-behaved - with some help from loom bands, cake and an iPad - so I was able to chat and knit and knit and chat some more.

I ended up spending the entire day Knitting in Public one way or another - at cricket, on the tube,  in the cafe and again in the tube on the way home. A few years ago I would have been too embarrassed to knit on public transport. In my head I imagined all the other passengers turning to stare at me, sirens going off and the train driver announcing, "Can the strange lady in carriage five please put those pointed sticks down and pick up a newspaper like everyone else."

Of course this says a lot about me at the time and not much about knitting. And it's not just because of knitting's 'revival', and because it's 'cool' nowadays to be creative with yarn that I can get my sticks and string out in public. It's because I realised that it doesn't matter whether it's cool or not, I just like it.

The Fall 2014 Knitty is out today and I'm very taken with Indigo Cones - the drape, the style, the dark blue: all wrapped up into one very wearable, very pretty summer cardi.

And judging how slow the Knitty website is at the moment, I think there are plenty of other people taking a look too.

Time to throw off my slippers and shawl, clear a pathway to the front door through the yarn and cats and prove to the man-on-the-street that knitters aren't just crazy old ladies with pointy sticks.  Aha, yes there are crazy young people out there with pointy sticks too! 

Take your pick of dates between 14 - 22 June as your World Wide Knit in Public Day.  I'm going to the Love Knitting / Knit for Peace event in central London on Saturday 21st, and then having a picknit with the lovely Redbridge NCT Knitters on the 22nd.  (It's a closed Facebook group, but feel free to join if you're local.)

As fab as it is to have an excuse to get out and meet other knitters, I wonder how long this event will last as a thing? I see more and more knitters out and about, and I already knit outside whenever I can sit down for longer than 60 seconds.  Still, I really am looking forward to my weekend of knitting.

I'm a bit disheartened with my own knitting this week. I've been messing about with a cotton yarn for my contoured intarsia ideas, but the lack of elasticity means the yarn doesn't have the forgiveness I need to keep the frequent increases and decreases tidy.  I've got a couple more ideas, but I'd really wanted to be actually working on my summer top by now.  Ah well, knitting and patience go hand in hand I guess.