LadyFest Knitting Frenzy

'Starting off with a picture that's a metaphor for this weekend; knitting & rock 'n roll! (note the whiskey on the side!)'

At the LadyFest, I spread the knitting word in a MULTIPLE of ways. Prepare for a picture-fun post full of knitting crazyfunkyness!

COMERCIALLY, I sold some of my own knitting and promoted Debbie Stoller's work through posters, flyers and books. The Dutch publisher of the books naturally agreed that a LadyFest, with lots 'n lots of (feminist) ladies, would the best place to (re)introduce knitting and sent me lots of stuff to make it happen.

ARTISTICALLY, I was DJ-ing for 3 hours while Kim watched my booth and presented me with a small list of orders on my return. Thanks again Kim! Being a total knitting obsessive nerd, I had to knit while DJ-ig, 'fcourse. When I spread the word, I spread it well! And not one person laughed at me... they were surprised, had question marks in their eyes, but everyone was amazingly friendly and open! 3VOOR12 Rotterdam journalist Sander wrote a really cool review. In English (loosely translated):'Female DJ's Saskia (while knitting) en Valesca (smoking a cigarette) talk to the crowd and show us what women are good at; doing more than one thing at a time. The fine tracks they're playing and the hospitality that's radiating off off them, gives you the feeling that they run the LadyFest bar....'

EDUCATIONALLY, I came up with a workshop that was all about knitting 'tags'. I've read about the idea and love, love, love it. You knit swatches and heat up the urban landscape by attaching them to lampposts, car antenna's, bike's, banisters and what not. It's such a friendly and funny way of leaving your mark. And by doing it, you just KNOW you're going to make some people smile. So during the day there were a handful of knitters that got a swatch done, attached and photographed. I'll be posting them in about a week, when the pictures from the 'cardboard' camera have been developed. Some other knitters didn't get the swatch done in time, the were hopping back and forth from bands to knitting, to the bar, to knitting, to another band, to the vegan food stand, and back to knitting... and so on. They fully enjoyed the festival with everything it had to offer but couldn't let their project go completely. Then there were those that got creative and made something else out of their swatch. But none of them knit one or two rows and left it at that... they were all very committed And I have to say, that means something with all this other stuff going on. Some were even so committed that they were at my booth for most of the time, missing out on everything else. That's what knitting will do to ya!

'If I knitted more skull wristbands I could've become a zillionaire... This is Leyla, showing her made-to-measure green skull arm warmer that I made live @ the fest for her and CC showing a black and white version.'

About this moment Sander (the journalist) wrote: 'Close to a delerium, I noticed Saskia's knitting art, that -except from- knitting 'friendly grafitty' was also knitting handbags to hang from your ears. Great invention!...' Weird guy...
Annet Brugel (another journalist) also wrote about our knitting in this review.

'Kim knitting and beeing her charming self.'

'Silvia has been in the Netherlands for 3 weeks and speaks AMAZINGLY well Dutch. Her continental style inspired me to start learning it too. On the right there's CC, Valesca and Allison helping each other out.'

'me and Serfa chitchatknitting'

'knitting frenzy'

'here's Serfa, knitting like a pro and in the back you can just see Ruxandra & Andrea from Ladyfest Romania with Melény and Puk.'

'it takes a lot out of you, you'd HAVE TO smoke, to stay focused..'

'there was ONE boy, who was in touch with is feminine side enough to give it a go.
Should I mention he also was, well, pretty drunk...?'

'here's one I did earlier'

'Melény's finished tag'

It was an amazing weekend, I slept for about 8 hours the whole weekend, knitting the whole day through and on into the depth of night, but it was worth it.

One of the best things this weekend was that I got to meet this gal, who is even more charming in real life than on the net. We couldn't stop jabbering on about everything knitty. I have found myself a kindred spirit, definitely. She joined in the teaching and stayed as long as she could. we almost had to kick her back to her babies, she didn't want to leave. I should've made a clearer picture of her, but here she is, in the distance, teaching Melény.

Black and white pictures courtesy of Daniel Baggerman.
Read the reviews and see the pictures (and some more) on 3VOOR12 Rotterdam.