Tuesday, September 18, 2007

The Busiest Season of All (for me anyway)



I've read that many people consider the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to be their busiest time of year. For me it's fall. My husband and I belong to a farm toy collectors club and every year in November and April our club holds a farm toy show that attracts hundreds of visitors. We only have about 15 members and only 8 are really active so this means that a few people do a tremendous amount of work. Our most important activity outside of the two shows is to sell chances on a pedal tractor to raise money for a scholarship. Every year we award a $1,000 scholarship to an area senior. That's a lot of chances for 8 people to sell. Doug, Linda and I take the pedal tractor around to various tractor shows and festivals, most of which are held in the fall. This provides many opportunities for Knitting in Public.

I knit in public all the time so when I learned that many consider this to be an unusual activity I was a little puzzled. Yes, I get comments and questions but I've never had anything other then a positive experience. More often than not, I'm approached by other knitters who want to ask about my yarn or pattern. I love this aspect of knitting in public.

Saturday Doug and I went to Crownsville, Maryland for the Renaissance Festival and I took my baby socks to work on while we're sitting around watching people (and drinking beer). I saw a woman knitting on the bench where I had been sitting and knitting just a few minutes before. I approached her we got to talking and really hit it off. It is amazing how many subjects we touched on during our short conversation. Her name is Sherry and she was there with her family. She was working on a sock but told me that she had only been knitting for a few months. You would have never guessed that by watching her knit. She went to a social knitting group with her daughter in Columbia, Maryland and I think that's how she got pulled into the knitting universe.

The Saturday before, I was knitting at an arts and crafts festival where we were selling chances on the pedal tractor when a little girl about 9 or 10 walked up to me and said, "You're knitting a sock." I was stunned. Not only did she know I was knitting but that I was knitting a sock. She scampered off before I could ask her how she knew what I was knitting. I looked at my knitting and it wasn't really to the point where it looked unmistakably like a sock hanging off my needles but she recognized it as such. I hope whoever the sock knitter is in her life teaches her how to knit.

Being out and about with time on my hands is a wonderful thing right now because I can sit and knit (or stand and knit) and I get to meet new friends like Sherry.

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