Underground Knitting

I hope that the fun's not all over before I get back to England this summer. Annie, over at London Underground, has blogged, with pictures, a "knitmeet" on the Circle line, and then very sweetly emailed me to make sure I didn't miss it.

Thanks, Annie! Lovely to see pictures of an entire tube car of passengers knitting.

The knitmeet was put together by "Cast Off" -- I'm definitely going to find them when I'm over there. Cindy sent me word of them a few weeks ago, on account of they organize guerilla knitting activities, and she thought I might be interested (me! I am shocked! and me so demure and all that, at the techno-geek girly bloggers luncheons!) but then I got all ill and work-stressed, blah blah blah, and forgot about them.

But I shouldn't have forgotten about them, because they are a hoot. Here's a piece of their constitution:

Cast Off activities provide an alternative to the usual and often alienating networks in the world of handicrafts. By arranging fun and adventurous knitting meetings and workshops in a range of unusual public settings. Cast Off aims to introduce a wide cross section of people to the craft. By providing materials and tuition, to beginners and more advanced knitters. Cast Off aims to educate and spread the creative potential of knitting.

The fun and adventurous knitting in unusual public settings they're working on now, I see from the chat section, are the Metropolitan Line, The East London Pubs, Pubs in Greenwich, and Pubs in Central London. Basically, here, what you have is knitting on public transportation and knitting in bars.

I think one could profitably combine the two -- knit for about three stops, get off, knit in the pub long enough to down a pint, get back on the tube, go three stops, knit in some local pub long enough to down a pint, get back on the tube....

A group could do this all night. And you'd be so safe! No matter how drunk you got! Cause for one thing, you'd be in this big ol' scary group, and for another thing you'd have those knitting needles.

Should you wish to purchase things from this enterprising and rowdy bunch, in order to educate and spread the creative potential of knitting, you can go on over to their shop and buy knitted shoelaces, already made (looks like I-cord), or, should you wish to knit things yourself, you can buy kits to make knitted cigarettes, knitted penises, and knitted hand grenades.

I am definitely looking these people up. Wonder if they have a branch in Northampton.