It’s customary at this end-of-the-row time of year to abandon our usual story-telling and let the windows tell their tales of the year that’s passed: A yarnie potting shed of budding flowers, a mysterious bicycle that cycles wool and rainbows through the night, a shower of knitting needle rain, a banner of hope knitted by the mighty diaspora of East London Knitters,  Lucy Miller’s glamourous knitted blouse collection, and an illuminated mouse house for Sadie Souris and her entourage. 

The windows that you see below were made possible by the restless fingers, warm hearts and resourcefulness of various indominatable east London knitters. We plummed new depths of our woolly imaginations, and came up with ideas that were often ridiculous and sometimes impossible. But from the smiles of the passers-by of this periodically locked-down shop,  I’m tempted to say that if ever there was a time for being impossibly ridiculous, 2020 was it. The window was our escape from this long and effortful year with all its clunky  lists of do’s and don’ts. 

So today I invite you to look through the windows and peer into the darkness there beyond. If you look carefully you may just see a version of the new year ahead of us, in which a bunch of jolly knitters are sitting together around the table making warm things. Look again and you’ll see there’s a space there for you too. I hope there’s a chance for you to join us there soon..