MSW--My Spectacular Weekend

What a fantastic time! My husband, niece, brother- and sister-in law indulged me by attending the Sheep and Wool Festival. A good time was had by all. We spent about 5 hours there on Saturday. I would have spent the whole weekend but, hey, when you're the only knitter in the crowd, one must compromise. The niece enjoyed petting things and picking out wool for a hat that I promised to knit. The husband and his brother are "let's find out" types and enjoyed asking questions of the breeders. (The anatomy of male sheep provided serious fodder for discussion. Boys.) I enjoyed everything. I must admit, as we were leaving, little clumps of knitters were scattered about in the shade, and I so wanted to plop down and knit away, but it was not to be.

Saturday morning I gave my niece a hefty gift bag full of goodies including a knitting starter set: Kids Can Knit, a knitting spool, two sizes of needles, a crochet hook, brightly colored cotton, and some Kool Aid-dyed wool. She spent a good part of the weekend making "tube scarves" for her stuffed animals. A knitter is born!

On Sunday, the niece and I decided to continue the knitting lessons (subjects covered: spool knitting, finger knitting, casting on, and the knit stitch) outside. Yep, knitting in a parking lot. All we needed was an Igloo cooler and a six-pack of cold ones. (Juice boxes, obviously.) We attracted some attention. A little neighbor saw what we were doing and went inside to get a knitting kit she had never even opened before.
SIDE NOTE:
Dear Makers of Kids' Knitting Kits:
Please, oh, please rethink the contents of your kits. Resist the urge to make an additional buck by including the crappiest yarn EVER in them. No one who touches that petroleum-based, sticky-yet-greasy nastiness will ever want to grow up to be a knitter. They will toss down their needles in frustration convinced that they cannot knit when, in fact, NO ONE can knit with that @#$%. Thank you.

My heart swelled with knitterly pride and joy when my niece told her friend, "This is my aunt. She is going to come visit this time every year and we are going to go to the Sheep and Wool Festival. She dyed this yarn herself with Kool Aid!" How sweet is that?!

Our short time at the Festival resulted in a relatively modest (by my warped, OCD-tinged standards) addition to Le Stash. On a side note, there was knitting, frogging, and re-knitting of the GG. (I did not see any GGs at MSW. Too warm, perhaps?) Once I decided it would not be worn to the festival, I frogged about 5 inches at the bottom that were just bugging me and started over. I may try to get it done for this weekend when I fly to PA to surprise Mom for Mother's Day. (She doesn't even know what a blog is, so the cat is in no danger of being let out of the bag!)