I didn’t intend to make my second blog posting about knitting (I promise I’m not obsessed) but had such fun last night…

Knitworking at the ICA, a heady combination of knitting and networking.

Take a bunch of broadly creative types of varying knitting ability, add some DJs and a free bar, throw in lots of (lovely Rowan) wool and needles, in a big room with four scaffold poles pointing vertically, and you get one of the most fun, if slightly bizarre experiences of the last, oooh, while.

The idea was simple – everyone knitted, or crocheted, or plaited or pom-pomed and incorporated it into the woven structure in the centre of the room. Whilst getting a bit tipsy and chatting to everyone else.

I got shown at least three different ways to cast on, and managed to do a few knits, before realising that I couldn’t talk and knit at the same time. So I found myself being a rather good shaggy-pompom maker.

Not everyone there was a knitter – I only found one professional knitter – but almost all (bar me, I think) were arts professionals, and up for a bit of networking and wool malarkey. The shared creative goal (creating a wonderfully weird web of wool) and the shared task of knitting with wool lowered barriers and enabled interaction – from another participant physically joining my wool with her’s, to having a range of easy conversation starters.

It made me think though – would it be possible to have something similar for science? I can’t PCR, but could a PCR-networking event work? Is there some other collaborative science activity that could work as a basis for a fun night out?

Or should i try to combine knitworking with my love of picnics, and have a picnicknitworking event? (Or should that be picknitworking?) Perhaps we could find some people that work with gorillas and their social cleansing interactions, and have a nit-pick-picnic-knitworking event? If we had a bring and buy area of unwanted scientific equipment, we’d have a nit-pick-picnic-nicknack-knitworking event. And we could blog from it, at nit-pick-picnic-nicknack-knitwork.net

OK, I’ll stop now.

But I do quite like the idea of a picnic. Perhaps with some artists and scientists along. I could even bake some fairy cakes.