My (Not So Secret) Knitting Pal

With all this talk about Secret Pal, I thought I would mention my not so secret but very new knitting pal Luciana. I had drinks with Luciana the other night as I discovered she was setting up a local knitting group and we decided to hook up now as the group doesn’t start till June 12th. She turned out to be really lovely and it was so much fun talking about knitting for hours with someone so much more experienced than me. She showed me lots special yarns from her stash, which made me very jealous as they were often purple and very gorgeous looking; many of her knitting books, which really useful as you can’t tell on Amazon what patterns the books actually contain and showed me a finished sock in Opal, which only made me want to start sock knitting even more!

Luciana also introduced me to bamboo needles. I have only been using aluminium needles, as that is all I could find near mine and I had no idea there would be that much of a difference if you used bamboo. In fact, she was kind enough to loan me a pair of bamboo needles in 4mm for the cardi/cropped jacket I’m knitting and I have to say they are incredible by comparison. Somehow they seem to slip into the loop more easily than aluminium, but paradoxically seem to hold the loops on the needle better. I certainly wont enjoy giving them back!

Another thing Luciana showed me, which I think might well be her pride and joy, were a pair of massive, outsize knitting needles. I don’t know what measurement they are in mms, but they were huge. At first I thought they might just be ornamental, I couldn’t quite work out how you would use them, but I am starting to get all these ideas for knitting bedspreads and throws that would end up looking like wonderful chunky nets. I might have to add a pair to my birthday/Christmas list – although as my folks already bought me my birthday present (I am indeed incredibly spoilt), I think I might have to find some more friends in the mean time! ;-)

Luciana is also going to the Big Knit In in Brighton at the beginning of June. She has invited me to go along with her and people from the last knitting group she organised in Bedford. It looks like a really fun event and I’d love to go, but I’ll have to see if I can afford a whole day out to knit. I’m also not sure what I want to knit after I finish this cardi/cropped jacket thing and I’d like to be engrossed in some new project if I take a whole day out to just knit and natter…

Oh, and if you are wondering, the image above is of a friendship knot; it seemed appropriate.