"Don't worry about the Stormtroopers, they're everywhere."
Or, When Nerds Collide
This year, Stitches Midwest shared convention center space with Wizard World, a comic book and science fiction convention. I'll confess, I share a certain number of limited interests in common with the Wizard World visitors, but mostly, I got my amusement out of watching the interaction between the two groups of people. Here are some of the main differences.
Here's how it broke down:
People wearing shawls: Stitches
People wearing capes: Wizard World
People carrying knitting needles: Stitches
People carrying staffs: Wizard World
People carrying bags of yarn: Stitches
People carrying bags of comic books: Wizard World.
When The Fool and I were leaving, he said to me, "So what's up with all these people in costume? Is it just a thing, or is there a contest or what?" I was explaining how it was just the thing to do at one of these conventions, when passing us, a girl in a black T-shirts emblazoned with comic book characters said clearly, "So wait, these people pay to get into the hall and then they just sit there and knit?"
Fly your freak flag proudly, is what I say.
So the Fool and Thorny and her friend Renee and I all flew our freak flags high. We bought yarn. Thorny's stash is across the top of the photo, ours is to the left of Angus and Renee's is to the right of Angus. She has the most self-control. Except for Angus, who can't stand the idea of anything happening in the house without his supervision.
After a toddler-free dinner of sushi and a cake I'd made for Thorny's birthday, which was last week, we all sat in my living room and cast on. Renee worked on a bamboo yarn headscarf, Thorny started making socks and I worked on some odds and ends.
This is the only picture I took of the yarn orgy, because how amazing is that? That's Thorny finding the middle of a center-pull ball of yarn without eviscerating it.
The Fool began knitting the Friday Harbor socks from Knitting On The Road. He was surprisingly thwarted in his efforts to find Jamieson's yarn at SMW, and will have to special-order it to get his sweater back on track. Thorny and I were also unsuccessful in finding a Dale of Norway baby knits book we wanted to get our hands on. We figured with that much knitting stuff in one place, we'd have no trouble, but apparently fiddly Fair Isle and complicated baby sweaters are not the thing.
Sockapalooza arrives!
Lookit my cool sock pal socks! Kristy from Utah sent these to me and I love them. They look so good blocked out like this, and the colors are great, and I have to learn how to make picot edges like that and ... there was more! There's an assortment of nifty cards that she also makes, which, naturally, I did not photograph, but believe me, they're nifty.
FO
Feline Object.
I finished a cat bed and felted it. It's supposed to have one moebius twist in the rim. But I adapted the pattern a little bit, and now it's got a big twist in it, which came out pretty well with the two colors going on.
The bed is a combination of Brown Sheep, Lopi and doubled worsted weight wool, including a bit of Cascade 220 and Blackwater Abbey. Stashbuster.
Dubious hit among the furry.
Before.
(An amusing note. I got Angus to sit in the bed by putting the bed on the floor and saying to him, "Angus, stay out of there. I mean it. Don't hop in that cat bed. Well, now that you're there, get out now. Don't sit down. Angus, don't lie down, or curl up like that. OK. Look away from the camera." Contrary beast.)
After.
A closeup of the part where my pattern deviated from Cat Bordhi's.
This year, Stitches Midwest shared convention center space with Wizard World, a comic book and science fiction convention. I'll confess, I share a certain number of limited interests in common with the Wizard World visitors, but mostly, I got my amusement out of watching the interaction between the two groups of people. Here are some of the main differences.
Here's how it broke down:
People wearing shawls: Stitches
People wearing capes: Wizard World
People carrying knitting needles: Stitches
People carrying staffs: Wizard World
People carrying bags of yarn: Stitches
People carrying bags of comic books: Wizard World.
When The Fool and I were leaving, he said to me, "So what's up with all these people in costume? Is it just a thing, or is there a contest or what?" I was explaining how it was just the thing to do at one of these conventions, when passing us, a girl in a black T-shirts emblazoned with comic book characters said clearly, "So wait, these people pay to get into the hall and then they just sit there and knit?"
Fly your freak flag proudly, is what I say.
So the Fool and Thorny and her friend Renee and I all flew our freak flags high. We bought yarn. Thorny's stash is across the top of the photo, ours is to the left of Angus and Renee's is to the right of Angus. She has the most self-control. Except for Angus, who can't stand the idea of anything happening in the house without his supervision.
After a toddler-free dinner of sushi and a cake I'd made for Thorny's birthday, which was last week, we all sat in my living room and cast on. Renee worked on a bamboo yarn headscarf, Thorny started making socks and I worked on some odds and ends.
This is the only picture I took of the yarn orgy, because how amazing is that? That's Thorny finding the middle of a center-pull ball of yarn without eviscerating it.
The Fool began knitting the Friday Harbor socks from Knitting On The Road. He was surprisingly thwarted in his efforts to find Jamieson's yarn at SMW, and will have to special-order it to get his sweater back on track. Thorny and I were also unsuccessful in finding a Dale of Norway baby knits book we wanted to get our hands on. We figured with that much knitting stuff in one place, we'd have no trouble, but apparently fiddly Fair Isle and complicated baby sweaters are not the thing.
Sockapalooza arrives!
Lookit my cool sock pal socks! Kristy from Utah sent these to me and I love them. They look so good blocked out like this, and the colors are great, and I have to learn how to make picot edges like that and ... there was more! There's an assortment of nifty cards that she also makes, which, naturally, I did not photograph, but believe me, they're nifty.
FO
Feline Object.
I finished a cat bed and felted it. It's supposed to have one moebius twist in the rim. But I adapted the pattern a little bit, and now it's got a big twist in it, which came out pretty well with the two colors going on.
The bed is a combination of Brown Sheep, Lopi and doubled worsted weight wool, including a bit of Cascade 220 and Blackwater Abbey. Stashbuster.
Dubious hit among the furry.
Before.
(An amusing note. I got Angus to sit in the bed by putting the bed on the floor and saying to him, "Angus, stay out of there. I mean it. Don't hop in that cat bed. Well, now that you're there, get out now. Don't sit down. Angus, don't lie down, or curl up like that. OK. Look away from the camera." Contrary beast.)
After.
A closeup of the part where my pattern deviated from Cat Bordhi's.
Comments
Angus just kills me. My cat is freakishly skittish and just runs away for no reason.
I love the two balls of greenish yarn on the top right of that photo. Yum.
And I wish I had people to sit around with and knit relaxing in a living room. All my friends are fiddle poops. (Wait, no offense to fiddles...I love them, just not their poop.)