Ramblings from a local yarn store

By Gerard Allt and Craig Carruthers

Living in London can often feel like you are an insignificant speck in amongst the millions of fellow Londoners, rushing around, hither and thither, always with somewhere to get to. Oblivious to everyone else.

Both of us here at I Knit London are Northerners who have travelled to the big smoke in search of good times. Oh, and streets paved with gold. While we both feel like Londoners we are still fiercely proud of our heritage - we are from Liverpool and Carlisle. Many have tried the big smoke only to be drawn away again by the lure of peace, quiet and cheaper booze. I don't know how long, officially, you have to live somewhere before you can claim to be of that place but we both feel like we have gained dual-nationality as both Londoners and Northerners.

The journey has often been paved with glitter and sparkle, but not much gold. Until now. I Knit London has become our home. I Knit London is not just ours; people from all over, each occupy a little space in our local yarn store experience.

But this is London - can you really have a local yarn store? This is London, the communal, diasporic, melting pot of modern multicultural globalisation? We think you can. Over the last few years we've begun to realise that London is just as local as rural Cumbria or inner city Manchester.

The answer is obviously - YES, of course you can. We are even hosting our second annual little village type fayre on 6 September this year, lovingly called I Knit Day, and which is sponsored by knitonthenet.com. We hope to see you all there!

If you break London down into it's small towns and villages it's easier to understand, easier to live with.

When we opened the IKL shop it was in a small Victorian square in Vauxhall, zone 1 on the underground map, which if you didn't know, makes it technically, central London. It was a real community the like of which we thought didn't exist in cities like this, and we were welcomed into that community warmly and wholeheartedly. For the last year or so we've felt that Bonnington Square was a one-off, so when we moved our shop a few weeks ago to new premises at Waterloo we were both concerned that part of the IKL experience would leave with it...

We opened the new shop on 15th March in an historic street tucked behind Waterloo Station. It really is central London now, but it's amazing to find another local community going about their business as if the swathe of London around them doesn't exist!

Lower Marsh, Waterloo has had a market day since the mid-1800s and even before that the street was a meeting place for all sorts of colourful characters. We feel like we belong here, amongst the cafés and pubs, the launderette, the bookshops and the market stalls.

In the week we moved we were both shocked to learn our local bakery, Kaye's of Lambeth, had closed down, a genuine family business since the 1930s succumbing to the supermarkets. Whilst we're lucky to have a niche, we've become only too aware of the need to support what's on your doorstep or the homogenisation of the high street will eventually consume us all! But, luckily, there's something about those who like to make stuff which leads them to shy away from the norm - maybe it's a crafty gene?

Whilst we try to offer a range of products for knitters that covers the gamut we'd need a warehouse the size of Wales to stock everything we wanted to (or even just to house all of the Malabrigo range!) but we have always been serious about supporting British producers - we're the only outlet in London (apparently the city where you can get everything...?) for Jamieson's of Shetland, for Garthenor's pure organic range of wool and for the lustrous Wensleydale Longwool, and we're prepared to be a little less business-like when it comes to making money in order to stock some of the more homespun, indie yarns available. One of our greatest successes was providing the platform and opportunity for one of our knitting group regulars to take the plunge and start his own range of hand-dyed yarns - now Easy Knits has gone from strength to strength and has even reached the heights of Knitonthenet (his yarns are reviewed in this very issue!).

Knitting has been making the so-called 'comeback' for years now, but hasn't it always been here? Those dedicated enough to the craft have kept it going through the lean years and now it's time for us young guns to keep that momentum going and to show that you can be a success in an industry that's supposedly dying out... with a bit of hard work and a lot of help from people, passionate about a craft / artform / skill / tradition that we'd all be much worse off without...

Recently we were both dismayed when we questioned why one of the country's major producers of yarn uses mills and spinners from outside the UK when there is so much talent and resources here - the answer? "We used to use mills in the this country but they were closed down or became too expensive" - that's what happens if you don't use them I suppose!

There are small, independent, local yarn stores and manufacturers up and down the UK. Use them, encourage them, support them.

Gerard Allt and Craig Carruthers run I Knit London, club shop and sanctuary, 106 Lower Marsh, SE1 7AB
visit the website at www.iknitlondon.com or read the I knit blog.

Tickets for I Knit Day on Saturday, 6th September, 2008 at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London, can be obtained from the iknitlondon website.