Hopscotch Socks & Soak

Three pieces of news

The first is that the Hopscotch Socks pattern by Anna Bell is available in the Socktopus Pattern Shop.  It’s a great pattern using a slip stitch cable. Awesome with variegated yarns as well as solids.

Soaktastic!

Second – you might remember me mentioning I had some news I was waiting to finalise before announcing.  Well it’s official now –  meet the new National Account Manager UK for Soak Wash! Yeeeppee. So excited. Soak is such an awesome product and I’m really excited to be working with Jacqueline & Chris from Soak. So if you have a local yarn shop that needs some SOAK (or if you have a shop you think should carry SOAK) then leave me a comment with the name of the shop or your contact details.

Three – I started my first day at All the Fun of the Fair yesterday.  If you haven’t been, it’s in Carnaby Street, just off Regent Street, in Kingly Court.  Kingly Court has three levels of funky shops, and a courtyard in the middle.

All the Fun of the Fair is on the top level, next to the Walk in Backrub shop and Triyoga.

All the Fun of the Fair

Triyoga Soho

Courtyard where I saw Hare Krishnas dancing

There were Hare Krishnas dancing, and some Eastender actors that visited on Tuesday. The actors visited the shop, the Hare Krishnas just danced through the courtyard on the ground floor.

C'mon in!

It’s a cute little shop – there is yarn – both the cheap and cheerful for those just wanting to start out, and the more luxurious and quirky like indie dyers or Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop yarn. Lots of great haberdashery supplies – vintage buttons, iron on patches, ribbons, handmade tags for your knitting. Kind of like an Aladdin’s cave of delights.. if Aladdin happened to be heavy into hand crafts.

Wall'o'yarn

Oh I guess I have four – I got stopped by the cops today!  Walking along, minding my own business, and a cop stops me to ask me 1) what business I have in the area – eg do I live there, and 2) to see my id.  Well, given that I know that cops cannot just randomly stop people – they have to have a reason, and they have to tell you that reason – seeing as the policeman wouldn’t give me a reason, other than to say I sounded defensive when he asked me if I lived in the area (I asked him if he was serious), I called the local police station to lodge a complaint.

I was dressed, admittedly, a little scruffy but hey, I don’t look like a vagrant, delinquent or crack head (at least I hope I don’t). I wash and I brush my teeth.  Occasionally I brush my hair (it’s ramrod straight and doesn’t really tangle so, well, I don’t brush alot).  I was carrying my Socktopus tote bag, with a big ball of yarn on it.  I was listening to my ipod (Harry Potter, for the zillionth time. I like listening to Stephen Fry. He’s a great story teller and a fab mimic).  Really, I am not, nor do I look like, a threatening, violent criminal.

So being stopped by a cop for me was quite disturbing.  Was it because I was wearing a puffer jacket (with a big Cambridge emblem emblazoned on the chest)? Was it because I am Chinese – did he think I was an illegal immigrant heading to my illegal job along Chelsea Embankment?  Did he think I was a local drug lord out to make a transaction?  Who knows, he never told me despite being asked point blank why he stopped me.

Afterwards I felt very indignant.  Surely they have better things to do with their time than to ask a 5’4″ Chinese girl, strolling by the river in broad daylight on Chelsea Embankment what she is doing with her time?  And see my id? The UK is one country where no one carries id on them.  You don’t even need to keep your drivers licence on you when you’re driving. If you are stopped, you only need to show up at the police station within a given time period with your licence.  Besides – really, surely if I am strolling along minding my own business, why is that the police’s business if they have no cause to question me?  It really does make me worry that the police do not understand or respect the scope of their own powers.  Even when I called the police station, the first person I spoke with was rather gruff with me and told me that the police have the right to stop anyone they want.  I questioned this and he told me he would pass me to someone who could confirm.  I was passed to Chris, who confirmed after referring to his superiors, that the police could not stop anyone they wanted, they could only stop someone with cause, and they have to tell you why they are stopping you if they do.  Harumph.  Seriously, the police should know their own powers better than the average joe, and the fact that they do not seem to is very worrying.

Right- enough brow furrowing. Here’s a poster I saw in the tube at Earl’s Court.  I did a double take.  Maybe you should too?

Bajingo!