Day Two At About The Knitters Fair

Like a fresh spring day when people breath deeply and say " Aaah. Isn't it a great day?" the Knitters Fair is a wonderful place to breathe yarn fumes and knitting ambiance and to see yarns that you don't see everyday at your local yarn store.

It's also a great place to see people that you don't see everyday - a 'Knitters Reunion' so to speak I spoke with Barbara, from my old knitters group in London; Kathy a customer at London Yarns when I worked there; Isa of 'Vegemite, Violets & Knitting' and Patrick, a former co-worker, now working at Village Yarns in Toronto. Patrick is the youngest of ten children and his Mother was a Knitter with a capital K. Being the youngest, he spent a lot of time with his Mom and can out-knit anyone I know, either by hand or on the machine. Not to mention he is witty, charming and funny. Go see Patrick if you are ever in the area of Village Yarns.

None of these people did I take a picture of. Smart blogger, eh? But, by the time I met up with Sharon - a fabulous knitter and also a co-worker from London Yarns, the camera was ready.

She's wearing Sally Melville's 'Lots Of Choices' vest from 'The Knitting Experience, Book One - The knit Stitch'. Only Sharon, with her knitting genius, added sleeves, and used a different colour for each part of the vest. Looks great, Sharon.

I spent the afternoon with my dear friend Patti-Ann, also a co-worker from London Yarns and also picture-less. (Bet you're happy about that, Patti-Ann.) Patti-Ann and I had decided we would meet just inside the main doors. But this year, as I mentioned yesterday, there were two halls, so two main doors. Would we find each other? It concerned me.

I saw Patti-Ann enter the hall just as I sat down to eat lunch with my friends from Meaford, Without a word, I jumped out of my seat, leapt over bags of yarn, pushed behind Ingrid as she tried to eat her soup and ran into the hall. The Meaford group must have thought I was possessed.

But the day was not without controversy. I had a run in with a little doll.
Remember my Comfort Dolls? I think this little fellow looks just like them. And I made the mistake of telling that to the lady at the Canadian Guild of Knitters Booth. Being known as 'Miss-Talk-A-Lot' in some circles (my husband's) I told the lady the whole story of how I noticed the dolls at a Church bazaar, how I figured out the pattern and wrote it up to share, first with my knit group and then with the blog. She gasped throughout the story. The gasps kept getting louder and louder. She finally told me, in no uncertain terms, that I should NOT have done that. She opened a copy of the guild's newsletter to show me a story of the 'Izzy' doll and the copyright logo.

Well, she struck a nerve there. I am known in my knit circles as the 'copyright queen' Nazi. No one I know is more diligent nasty about enforcing copyright than me. I believe strongly that designers (like any worker) deserve to get paid for their work. Every time a pattern is copied, money is taken from a designer's pocket. But it isn't possible to copy something you have neither seen or heard of. I might have definitely told her that. I didn't want to join her guild anyway. So there.

Other than that one little nasty encounter it was a great day. Oh and did you notice the bag of yarn in the photo yesterday that I didn't describe to you?
This one?
That was a gift from Patti-Ann. 11 balls of Valentino. A Cotton, Viscose, Linen blend from Italy.

Great day.