Sunday, April 23, 2006

Saturday

Yesterday was great. There were kids and sheep and yarn and friends and family. Hooray!

I ran smack dab into Suzanne from Double Helix and her lovely family while browsing a craft booth, so we hung out for a bit and ate lunch together. It's easy to make friends when you bring extra picnic blankets. Hopefully I didn't scare her too much with my crazy stories. But I did discover that she's WICKED smart! CalTech. PhD. something.something.scientific.career. Hubby is an astronomer with similar credentials. Etc. Mafia felt like a meat head. But she's not one of those wicked smart people who can't have a real conversation. She's down to earth and super fun to hang with.

We've been chatting over email about her idea to host a Turtle completion party sometime this summer, so I'll get to spend even more time with her. Let's hope Suzanne's party plans are solidified enough to be made public. oops??? And folks --- put away that exciting new project from the Spring Knitty and get crackin' on those Olympic projects! Everyone will be invited, but don't you want to show off your project?

After being explicitly told "do not buy yarn" by Wifey, I loaned Little Man $8 so he could buy one skein of sock yarn. Yes, he actually requested socks while stroking and hugging the skeins. After much contemplation, he finally chose this colorway:
How could I refuse?
I met the woman behind Woolarina, who was very nice. And I met the lovely Skeintily Clad who was so sassy looking sitting at her spinning wheel with a tongue ring, red hair, and brightly colored roving. It's very hard to resist pierced girls spinning wheels.

After seeing Suzanne's stunning shawl kit, I had to run over to the Mostly Merino booth to see what other lovelies were for sale there. While there, I chatted with famous Margaret Wilson. Of course, I had no idea that she was famous. She gave me her business card and I stupidly said, "hey, this sounds familiar." She was very gracious as she helped me to understand which of the 1,000 places I may have seen her name, including Loop-d-Loop, and most embarrassingly of all, The Green Mountain Spinnery book. Yep, I've seen that one. Whoah. I felt like such a dope, but she was super nice, her yarn was delightful, and the samples were astounding. I can't wait churn through my stash, so I can justify dropping a wad there.

On the way out, I ran into the always lovely MIT SnBer Katie, fresh back from a trip to Florida with her adorable family. Seriously, her hubby is very sweet and her kids are even cuter in person.

Later that afternoon, Alison came over and we drank entire pots of tea, knit, cooked, playing with Little Man and watched Born Into Brothels until the wee hours. Little Man demonstrated his knitterly talents: when I asked him what Alison was doing, he replied "socks" and walked away. I expected "knitting," but apparently he's been paying more attention than I thought. My little knitting-mama heart nearly exploded with pride. Alison finished a beautiful pair of socks, of her own design, so let's all bug her until she puts the pattern and a price tag online, so we can all partake in the glory of these socks.

I'm off to finish these frickin'-frackin'-SockPalOOO socks before Little Man wakes up from his nap.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You were just as fabulous as I thought you would be, and I felt really at home with you immediately. On a related topic, oops indeed! I laughed out loud. How would June 25 work for you? It's the weekend in between Father's Day and Fourth of July. It may seem far away, but it really will take me two months to beat back the clutter in my house.

nina beana said...

i just emailed you asking how the sheepies were, but then checked here...now i know! glad it was so much fun, and wish i could've been there, too. meow!

Katie said...

Glad to hear Little Man thawed out ok - it was cold! We stopped for coffee on the way home just to warm our hands. This morning Z was very upset she had to go to school and not back to see more alpacas and sheep. And soon the knit-savvy LM will learn what my son now says..."Mom, when you're done with that row, can you get me something to drink?"