I Was So Darned Good!

I love SAFF. Debra and I had the best time last year at SAFF and I've been looking forward to repeating that experience for a year. But 2008 has been, as you may have heard me say 14,287 times, a tough year. Money is tight. I have very little leave from work. And money is tight.

So Debra and I cancelled our fun-filled, allout-yarn-extravaganza. It just wasn't the year for hotel rooms, meals out, stash-building. Heck, I haven't knit last year's loot! But in a moment of Zen, I took the middlepath, and took the bus up for the day with Elyse and Bill and the Only Ewe and Cotton Too folks. What a fun day, even if it did begin at o'dark-thirty!

Lots of old and new friends--Joyce and Jolie and Phyllis (and her beautiful granddaughter) and Cheryl and Jenny and Betty and Elaine and Brenda and Lois and Claudia and HockeyMom and Mary Ellen and ... I can't remember them all, but lots of folks I knew and more that I know better now. And, of course, everywhere I went I ran into folks that I know--how did this happen? How can I know so many knitters?

Forget that...it's definitely not about me. Most of the people we met wanted to talk about Joyce's Noro Silk Garden sweater:

But even Joyce didn't have as many people petting her as did this little baby--a pygmy goat only four days old, one of triplets. Too cute! I would have stuffed him right into my knitting bag if I could have gotten away with it. The pugs would loved him and my neighbors are so over the pugs, they probably wouldn't have noticed!

Speaking of odd animals, the boys (Steve and Lou and Doug, et al.,) were all wearing matching hats, even Rob's beautiful son Michael.

No, that's not quite accurate. Michael's was pink and didn't have all the ... accroutements ... of the big boys's hats:

The male spinner from Charlotte sitting behind us was very pleasant to chat with but definitely not amused. He kept saying that their wives were probably embarrassed--probably not a big issue. That's Steve in the hat and his wife has a great sense of humor, even if she is a crocheter. Hey! We all know that some knitters have skeins and some have balls ... I guess we know now which is which.

Now, for some obligatory knitting content as they say on the Knitlist. No, not mine, silly! The lovely ladies below are Allen Butler of Numma Numma (Toasty sock yarn) fame and a friend who declines to be named because she swears she's in the Witness Protection Program. Fine, whatever, Melissa.

The shawl that Allen is wearing (sorry for the crappy exposure in the photo) is made from her own yarn in a color I'd dye for (a little fiber humor). The shawl itself is a pattern I started and never (of course!) completed called Mystic Light and was knit by Doug--sorry I don't have a picture of Doug in his sheep hat so he could be identified. Absolutely beautiful! (The shawl, not Doug.)