I used to knit only at home, at friends' places and back in those days, my teenage years, when we were meeting up weekly for 'youth group' (don't know if there is a better translation). My friends were instrumental in my starting to knit (peer pressure! Everything at 15 is cool as long as your friends are into it) - so sitting in their midst while crafting away was really, really cool. Made me feel good.
I only just realised that this must be one of the reason why I enjoy going to knitting groups so much these days! Seeing as it takes me right back...
I really enjoy knitting at knitting groups - I go to a weekly one most weeks and have started going to a monthly group in London's Notting Hill area, the Last Wednesday in the Month Knitting Club. The venue (The Travel Bookshop) has a lovely, relaxing atmosphere with the added bonus of being able to look through their stock, and you get a cup of coffee too!
Since the knitting groups, I started knitting in public too. My usual journey into work on the tube can be very boring. I can only make myself read Metro so many times and reading a paper is never any real competition if you could be knitting instead! It does depend on how crowded the train is. Evenings (particularly after knitting group) is best and those mornings when I managed to leave the house those vital 5-10 minutes earlier than normal. If you had told me not all that long ago that I might voluntarily get myself out of the house earlier than I absolutely have to, I would have called you more than crazy...
(PS: I also knit at work at lunchtime, my colleagues no longer quirk an eyebrow, they're way too used to see me with yet another knitting project.)
But mainly I like cafes and places like that - I am in the process of trying to find out which particular ones are best for spending an hour or two to indulge without having to sit at home in the same four walls. The cafes in the book shops on Charing Cross Road or Trafalgar Square (Borders and Waterstone's, I think) are not bad, but they do get awfully crowded on a weekday evening after work. Not completely great fun as such. I like the cafe in the big Waterstone's on Piccadilly, but it is located in the basement and much nicer when it's nasty weather outside (then it's cosy). Now that it is getting much sunnier and warmer, I will probably try to find places where you can at least see what it's like outside. Maybe on the South Bank at or near the Royal Festival Hall. I will also try the plaza outside the British Library, they have a coffee shop right out front and some seating on the plaza.
Good luck with finding places! I'm afraid by the Royal Festival Hall it will be very crowded indeed, with tourists gawking at you... I photographed one of my projects there once and that was the greatest amount of weird looks I ever got! But if you can snatch one of the benches overlooking the river, go for it, and ignore the tourists ;)
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