I Spied (But Didn't Buy) Wool in London

Love this moving water sculpture just outside the security zone at Pearson Airport in Toronto.

As we stood in the line snaking through airport security en route to London we kept passing a young woman whose backpack had skeins of hand dyed yarn flopping out of the pockets. She was wearing a Steven West shawl over a hand knit wool cardigan. I saw her as a good omen for wooly fun ahead.

A few hours later as we walked into our room at the uber hip Ace Hotel in Shorditch, there under the window, with a great view of the Gherkin was an expansive day bed that immediately called out..."why not sit here and knit?!"

(In the end, Number One Son's 18 hour-a-day tours left no time or energy for knitting but even the prospect of it was a lovely thing to imagine.)

Out and about I was ever on the look out for wool and there was plenty of it to be seen.

The families lounging upon wool blankets on the grass at Kew were only the beginning. Unlike here in Toronto, many of the home wares shops I visited offered pure wool blankets for sale - in an array of wonderful colours...

Knitted bunting hung in shop windows that didn't stock yarn...

In Churchill's underground WWII War Room, literally preserved as it was on the day of the Armistice, wool yarn was tacked up on huge wall-spanning maps to illustrate the ever changing picture of enemy/allied advances...

I wondered at the prospect of someone, in the days of the Blitz, going out to pick up the yarn for this.

On the streets of London, I saw many people, and especially males, wearing fantastic wool jackets, sweaters and scarves. This little boy was my hands down favourite!...

Of course,  there was also my plan to bring some wooly goodness home with me from Loop!

I wanted a hardy, UK tweed wool yarn for a "cracking good", British sweater or vest for My Beloved.

Then there was my additional idea - the one I went on about in my last post - to nab a sweater quantity of rosy pink wool yarn for myself.

Images of such soon-to-be purchases were on my mind as we headed out walking from Shoreditch to the neighbourhood of Islington where Loop is located.

Our route took us alongside a picturesque canal lined with boats that serve as people's homes. That in itself was worth venturing off in the direction of the shop but the little alleyway in which Loop sits is also utterly adorable...

And the alley runs behind an equally beautiful, leafy roadway lined with interesting shops and cafes.

The tiny store looks like its associated web site and at first glance seemed a perfect combined distillation of London and Knitting. As I slipped through the narrow doorway into the shop my heart raced at the prospects therein.

Then the shop owner greeted me...with an American accent? The salesperson on the upper floor offered to assist me - another American.  Two knitters, sitting round a table upstairs chatting - one of whom worked in the shop - both Americans. Nothing wrong with Americans, just not what I was expecting at all.

Not surprisingly, as with the web site, many, many of the yarns were also North American (Debbie Bliss and Rowan yarns I can find here any day of the week won't evoke London to me once back at home.)

Overall I'd say the selection was international - Brooklyn Tweed in all its forms, South American yarns, Quince and Co., Japanese and Icelandic yarns - you get the idea.

The worsted weights were alpaca, silk and some blends - none of it was what I was looking for.

Loop has had custom colour ways in some yarns but they were sold out.

There were a couple of dozen shades of Shetland Jumper Weight but nothing in that British rose kind of colour I was hoping to find.

In the end I picked up a copy of Loop's 10th Anniversary Pattern Book.  The photography captures the feel of what I'd hoped to find. I'll source the yarn from home. Book in hand I rejoined My Beloved and Number One Son outside the shop. They greeted me with shocked amazement. "That was quick!" "No yarn?" "Are you sure? We don't mind waiting."

I assured them I'd exhausted the possibilities of the store's inventory to my purposes and off we went.

That quick exit paid off a couple of days later though. On a rare few hours without our "guide" My Beloved suggested we go back to Liberty of London (thank you Lorraine for that fantastic recommendation!) so I could maybe get some fabric to commemorate our trip since the plan for yarn had been abandoned. On our way to Liberty we stumbled upon a street with many fabric shops and there I found the most fantastic little place, every bit as charming as Loop and maybe even then some. I spent over half an hour inside and came out with some wonderful goodies...

Breezy, plaid cotton gauze from France, some hand dyed in India indigo and a wee little embroidered initial from Japan for Darling Daughter.

So, wool was a big feature of London for me - its just the only wool I brought home in my bag was the Debbie Bliss, Irish tweed I took with me in the first place. 

(Our) Spring Time in London

London was, as ever  sprawling, bustling, clearly ancient yet confidently modern.

Seeing it with Number One Son, whose been there a couple of years now, was a headlong race to tour, taste and meet up with the fantastic gems he's discovered. So much so, I only recognized the details of all we did once back at home last week sorting the hundreds of photos I took.

Impossible to miss in real time though, was the perfection of the sunny spring weather and its accompanying sights. We even had a few light rain showers one afternoon to make things feel properly British.

The leaves on the trees were beginning to unfurl.

The weekly Columbia Flower Market was extra crammed

This was literally the only place this little guy could stand and not get trampled!

There were folks picking up fantastic looking plants for their plots at home...

But no less showy was the quantity and array of cut flowers both in Columbia Road and in the little street corner stalls across the city we saw as we toured about.

Peonies

Parrot Tulips

Bouquets of Crocus like I've never seen here at home

Several different colours of light pink roses to choose from in this one stall!

Maybe its the nature/quality of the light in London but there's something about the way the Brits "do" pink - sophisticated and cool without looking lurid, or girly.

Just look at this beautiful (delicious) chocolate coconut wafer cookie...

Wouldn't these stripes look great on a knitted pullover?

And I just had to snap a picture of this great looking bike...

Even big, beautiful blush pink meringues were calling to me as colour inspiration for knitting.

All these sights got me resolving to pick up rose-coloured yarn as a souvenir of this trip when I finally made it to Loop.

Before that, however, we were to head to Kew Garden and it didn't disappoint. The scale and ambition of the plantings are literally without parallel.

Trees planted to create the appearance of landscape paintings complete with forced perspective - here, along with the meandering mown path leading the eye to an unassuming bench.

Clipped vistas set against lush expanses of lawn...

Photo-inducing frames for Kew's collection of period structures and buildings...

Kew's famous "Pagoda"

Luckily the garden seemed free of tourists on the Bank Holiday we visited, instead, local families lounged on the grass atop wooly plaid blankets as if out of a BBC television program.

Kids were making daisy chains...

Then there were these two gardens, set virtually next to each other...one, behind Kew Palace...

The other...behind the building housing the Palace Kitchens...

They evoked many, many British books, movies and television programs. I half expected to see Peter Rabbit in his little blue waistcoat hopping around the lettuces in this one!

Of course, back in central London signs of the British spring were everywhere too. Grand floral displays...

Charming domestic plantings...

Flowering fruit trees in Notting Hill looking almost artificial against the pure blue sky...

Probably the sweetest, most spring-timey sight though...flowers on little girls...in their hair...

Printed on their dresses

Encircling their heads...

Finally (and best), we even had a bit of springtime in our room at the hotel...Number One Son organized a sweet little arrangement of flowers for us...

I've never had such a treat before while away on holiday but 'have to say it was surprisingly fantastic to come back to the sight of them and their scent hanging in the air after touring the streets of London for hours and hours each day.

Yup, all this had me primed and ready to splash out on some rosey British yarn. I'd been looking forward to my trip to Loop before but now I couldn't wait. Day 3 would start with the half hour walk there from our hotel!

Details on that tomorrow and thanks so much for dropping by today!

Cities

Great cities offer fantastic travel experiences - people, food, museums, parks, civic buildings, markets, transit and traffic - all right there outside the door of your hotel. 'Love it!

Last weekend, acting as tour guides, we waded into our own city with one-thing-after-the-other intensity we usually only undertake when we're away and I have to say it was just great fun.

(Drafting this post I surprised myself at how many spots we managed to visit in a couple of days.)

Friday evening we dined in the revolving restaurant "360" at the CN Tower. (One of the 7 wonders of the modern world pictured on the right below...

Toronto Island (on the left) our harbour and the downtown waterfront punctuated by the CN Tower on a stunningly perfect cool spring morning.

With that overview fresh in our minds we set out Saturday morning to explore things at ground level.

Our first stop - the St. Lawrence Market - named "best market in the world" by National Geographic. Back bacon sandwiches are a breakfast tradition there. Canadian butter tarts and nanaimo bars also made their way onto our "strolling menu". (It may have been a bit early in the day for these treats but its important to immerse yourself in the local cuisine!)

'Being a "tourist" I didn't buy groceries but I was tempted by these beautiful bluish-green duck eggs...

Fragrant locally roasted, fair trade organic coffee...

And these pointy beauties...

Never mind the cheeses, seafood, meats, sausage, rice, grains etc. etc. etc. also on offer!

After the market we toured the waterfront east of downtown (Over the course of the weekend we'd eventually see the central and western bits too.)

A sun drenched walk along the Boardwalk in the Beach

Then it was off to explore a few of the 55 great neighbourhoods in the city; strolling residential streets and checking out their local shops. (By weekend's close we managed to visit 15 in all)

We also hit a couple of look out points.  The one pictured below is high above the Don River Valley overlooking the Evergreen Brick Works (which we toured after leaving the Lookout).

The Brickworks was the source for much of the traditional red brick of Toronto homes but once its quarries were exhausted it sat, abandoned and derelict for years until Evergreen and the City of Toronto teamed up to re purpose it into a bustling hub of Green commerce with a revolving schedule of farmer, Etsy and antique/vintage markets,  a children's garden, off leash dog park, extensive walking trails and about a millionty other things that change with the seasons.

Post Brickworks we headed to another repurposed industrial property - the  Hiram Walker Distillery (built almost entirely of red brick) in the neighbourhood of "Corktown" where love seemed to be in the air.

LOVED lunch at "Cluny" (can't recommend it highly enough!)

 Then, LOVED a coffee-to-go from Balzacs'...

Walking around with coffees in hand we couldn't help but see these two clearly loved each other...

And this group, was of course, all about the love...

One of three weddings we saw over our Saturday wanderings.

Then it was on to the main downtown shopping area at The Eaton Centre to check out a certain flock of flying geese , and as we went I couldn't help noticing how funky our skyscrapers are getting...

Next we turned to government buildings...

 Old and New City Halls...

The latter, of course home to the Toronto Sign...

Then it was on up University Avenue past the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Courts, the Ontario Parliament Building at Queen's Park all en route to a tour of  the amazing "Hogwarts-ian" Hart House at the University of Toronto.

From there we walked the quiet, treed length of the Philosopher's Walk ravine between, the Faculty of Music and Royal Conservatory of Music and the Gothic Revival buildings of Trinity College before leaving the University grounds to emerge onto Bloor Street at the Royal Ontario Museum where Daniel Libeskind has fused its traditional architecture with some pretty modern ideas...

Next, east along Bloor - where the luxury branded shops cluster then to Yorkville, checking out its unlikely mix of chic renovated Victorian homes, condo buildings and bustling patio restaurants before finally finishing our day at Canada's largest Public Reference Library.

We headed home after that - a dog needed walking - our friends 'heading to the Entertainment District for dinner at "Luma in the Toronto International Film Festival "Lightbox". 

And that was just Saturday!

Sunday morning, also gloriously sunny, we started in the empty-on-the-weekend Financial District checking out some of the bank towers (why not cover a bank building with gold impregnated glass right?).

To really understand this area of the city we headed down into the underground "neighbourhood" of the PATH - the world's largest network of  underground shopping it also connects subway, hotels, trains, office towers, condos and music halls and its really handy for just getting from "A" to "B" when the weather isn't great.

Then it was off to tour more neighbourhoods, passing through our "fairgrounds", High Park (the biggest in the city) and its residential surroundings before a walk through what's been called the second "coolest" street in the world - West Queen West.

As noon approached, there were planes to catch . It was time to wind up our Toronto tour.

Just as we'd started with a food market so too we ended with one - this time peeking into a gorgeous second story Loblaws Grocery on Queen Street where we naturally found store brand butter tarts and nanaimo bars prominently displayed - bearing out our assurances these treats are a "thing" in Canada.

It was a great two day adventure in our own backyard and it has us ready and primed for this coming weekend when My Beloved and I will be the ones taking rather than giving a tour, this time, of London with Number One Son acting as guide. (I'm looking forward to the trip but as a mom, have to say, really excited to see our "boy" for the first time since Christmas!)

Which reminds me...I've got some packing to organize - 'best to start with "travel knitting" right?

Thanks for dropping by and today taking this little tour of our town with me!