Much Ado About Knitting (Episode II)

Last time, in episode I, you’ve learned about the preparation, the goddess, joined in some knitting philosophy and read about my rising star on TV. Now hang on to your needles, the story continues:

Episode II:

The Autograph Girl, Baffled by the Goods and Damn Near Exhaustion

Knit a River for a good cause

After Sjoerd, Puk and I got one scene down (in which we teach him how to knit a red tie), I skipped on down the road onto the book signing where I presented D.S. (cool initials, means goddess in French… (ok, stop with the adoration stuff! I’m really starting to need a bucket!!) I presented Debbie Stoller with three of her (my) books. She gasped, said ‘wow’, and asked if I’ve used the dairy already. When presented with my humble drawings and writing, she smiled. I think she was honestly really happy to see that it was put to good use. I just whish I had it sooner so it would be full of stuff. After signing the first two, she ran out of lines to write in the third book. So I said ‘Why don’t you write; ‘I rock!’ off course she wouldn’t and wrote; ‘you rock!’ which was a bit embarrassing, to say the least…

note that my knitted skull matches her shirt (unintentionally...)

I'm such a nerd...

After finishing my skull wrist warmer that I wanted to present to Sjoerd, but he not-so-politely declined, I shopped for the goods. I planned on ‘window’ shopping before I’d start throwing money around like a madwoman. But I think that plan got lost somewhere around the third minute after coming up with it… I lost my head. I really did. Heard of the phrase: ‘kid in candy store’, pshshsh, skip that, I was Charlie, in the freaking chocolate factory (coffee factory technically ...)!! Usually at this point you’d read: ‘I didn’t know where to start’, but gosh I did, I did! ANYWHERE!!
I’m at the same time proud and a little embarrassed by all the crazyshoppingness splashed here before your eyes. I simply couldn’t help myself. But in my defence, I saved up for it! Yes, I did! And I gave myself a holy rule: Don’t buy stuff that’s easy to get in the usual stores. Did it work? You decide.

THE LOOT:

One set of vintage straight needles and three sets of vintage dpns. Beautiful stuff! What greatness could have been made with them, all those years ago? And second-hand Fair Isle ‘fishies’.

Bamboo needles. Two sets of dpns and a circular one. Not easily obtained here in ‘the low lands’.

One skein of the ultra soft Phildar Bowling in the pretty green colors. Have held it in my hands so many times, this was the time to buy it. I disobeyed the rule, I know, but it was cheaper here!!

Two skeins of organic, home dyed sockyarn (100% wool) by Storm Op Zolder (Storm in the Attic). Color: Honey Bear. Great crazy colour combo. Pretty cool stuff at the Storm Op Zolder booth. Cool owner as well!

Two skeins of Wensleydale Sheep Shop Long wool in a powder blue and a light curry colour.
Can be felted, but I’m thinking maybe too pretty to felt….

A bunch of Drops Eskimo bulky yarn in off-white to make a scarf and hat or hat and mittens or mittens and scarf. You catch my drift. Very Dolce & Gabana, very this season!

And finally, two skeins of amazingly soft Drops Alpaca. So soft you can hardly feel it. One in a powder blue again, or maybe I should say light petrol. And one in a forest green mixed with a rusty colour. Great, great stuff! Are probably morphing into wristwarmers or fingerless gloves.

And I also got quite a bit of folders, flyers and busyness cards for follow-up-shopping online.
At the end of the day it turned out that I had mysteriously missed one booth. Puk took me to see it. And oh my gosh, the lusciousness, the wonder, the sparkling prettiness… The two sisters from Klazien's Kreatie sold the perfect green tweed for my cardi-to-be, the holy grail of my knitting. See, I’m on a quest for the perfect pattern and the perfect yarn and I’ve found the latter! Insert *happydance* here. Sadly enough I ran out of money way before I stumbled upon the sisters. Then one of them said: ‘We have an ATM, you can pay with your bank card if you want.’ My knees wobbled, my breath stopped for a second and then I did the sanest thing I did all day: I walked away… (clutching their folder tightly in my hand)

It was a crazy day, a crazy and wonderful day. The craziest thing about it all was the fact that people, strange people came up to me saying; ‘you must be Sas!’. Crazy @ss sh#t! Very, very, very surreal! Those people turned out not to be so strange at all, they were some of the Dutch bloggers I read and know well from their stories! I met Lies, Saartje, Tijm, Astrid and...am I forgetting anyone? It was great to see them in person and hear their voices. Great lassies the bunch of them they are! (read with Scottish accent in mind) I whish I had more time to chat to them, and meet every one of those bloggers out there online, but there was so much going on, I got swept away from one location to the next the whole day through. (mental note: blogger meetingpoint on next SnB Day!) These strange meetings and my TV appearance would definitely file under: my 15 minutes of fame. As the day would file under: 6 hours of bliss and wonder.

a certain someone's loving her new yarn..

another someone is loving her siggie so much she had to go knit outside. It was the funniest thing, this woman was cursing and smoking and knitting at the same time, a true stitch bitch, pardon my french...

Finally, after 6 hours of bliss, I got back onto my bike, full bags hanging from my handlebar and rode off into the crisp, bright sunset, feeling like an exhausted but happy, happy knitter.

The End

Van Nelle Fabriek

In reaction to Much Ado About Knitting (Episode I), the previous post:

A whole bunch of lovely lassies replied to my last post, beeeing a little sad about the way I portreyed the knitters at the SnB Holland Day. Gosh girls, I wasn't talking about you!! Not in the least bit. Aren't you girls the funky online knitters that are knitting funky and hip stuff? You are! Give yourself some credit! I should have mentioned Holland when I talked about my knitting world online. You are part of it too you know. Quote: 'I’ve got in contact with young(-ish) girls and women that are on the same knitting wave-length as I am.' THAT'S YOU! Little did I know that you were older than 30-ish (as mentioned) Which, when you think of it, is proving that I réally think you're young. Haha! ;-) I do feel that in addition to that it would've been nice to see some younger knitters too, another new generation. Which certainly doesn't mean that I don't have a world of respect for the elderly knitters. That's a completely different story altogehter. Hope I've explained myself better this time. ;-)

Knit it on you frisky young things!

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