Tired But Happy

The fiber festival is over until next year. We had a great time! We handed out a lot of our contact cards, and if we saw you at the festival, we look forward to seeing you at our next West Michigan Lace Group meeting!

This morning I realized why I thought we were in a white building last year: the building is white on the inside. Since I spent most of my time inside it, I guess that fact that it is red on the outside didn't register.

Today I spent the whole time knitting pattern 8 from the Knitalong Sampler M Yahoo group. This pattern, "Clivia", is a very pretty little pattern with narrow garter stitch bands running up and down. I did tweak it a little on the third repeat, changing the last sl 1, k1, psso into a k2tog, so I ended up with vertical bands next to the garter stitch, but that's just me and the vertical band thing again.

Yesterday I tatted a wavy edging, using size 70 tatting cotton on huge Tatsy shuttles, and a second piece of edging using size 10 Cebelia on metal Boye bobbin shuttles. Every year someone asks if you have to use a big shuttle with big thread, and a tiny shuttle with tiny thread. This year I was ready for that person, and no one asked!

Here is the shopping I did this year: a Pelc two-bobbin tatting shuttle, one (look, only one! and you should have seen the tempting and expensive yarn in the booth with the Orenburg shawls!) ball of sock yarn, and another set of 1.25 mm knitting needles.

Last, I have a knitting needle story to tell. Months ago, I went to one of the antique stores in Allegan. After prowling through every booth and getting all the way around back to the entrance, I found a small handmade knitting board, and a long narrow black paper envelope: "Bucilla steel knitting pins, size 19, set of 5". The tag on the envelope said "3 knitting needles", but when I looked, I only found one.

I hunted all over on the shelves and floor below, and in the boxes of sewing patterns on the shelves, but I couldn't find the other two. When I told the woman at the register this, she said I could have it for a third of the marked price, which I thought was fair!

After we picked up our table at the fiber festival today, I decided to go back to that store. To my surprise, in the same booth, in a glass of crochet hooks, today I found another steel knitting pin! So, yes, I took it to the counter, told the cashier I had bought another there quite a while ago, paid for it, and took it home.

And to my delight, it is a match for that first one! It is the same diameter (I push each one through a piece of paper and then check them against the other needle's tiny hole), has the same tiny, drill-sharp tip, and even has faint corrosion in about the same places.

I wonder if I will find the third if I go back again in a couple of months?