Land of 10,000 Knitters

This last week our local guild had Carol Rhoades as a speaker and she took us on a virtual tour of Finland. If you can't place her name, she's a knitter who translated "Two-Ended Knitting" by Anne-Maj Ling into English.



The rest of the week was spent working overtime so I could leave on Friday for Minneapolis and the Knit Out. I met up with a fellow camper from SHP's Knitting Camp (Hi Maureen!) and we descended on a LYS before heading over to the MOA (Mall of America for those of you uninitiated in the finer points of rampant american consumerism). Now I've been to MOA before as family live in the area but I've never seen the mall this crowded. There was barely a parking space to be found when we arrived in the early afternoon. It will be interesting to see the estimate of how many knitters were in attendance.

We caught part of a "show and tell" that had members of the audience come up and display their knitting or crochet projects. My favorite was a 10 year old boy who had his teenage sisters and mom as models. This kid had knit scarves and felted bags - and even embellished the bags with old jewelry. I think we were witness to the first public appearance of the next Kaffe Fassett.



All of the women on the stage in this picture are wearing or holding his knitting.

We also watched time trials for the fastest knitter. Anyone attending the Knit Out could participate in this. Annie Modesitt won the fastest knitter. THEN came the international contest. There were 5 contestants from Canada, the Netherlands, the Shetland Islands, the US, France.



Maureen and I were unpatriotic - rooting for Hazel Tindall rather than the US contestant. We should have placed bets. (This was actually occurring with proceeds going to the Ronald McDonald House.) Hazel won with a best out of three score of 262 stitches in 3 minutes.

My apologies to any crocheters out there, but I have no photos of international fastest crocheter contest. There were only 2 contestants in that competition - from Canada and the US. What was impressive was that the same woman who was the US fastest knitter was also the US fastest crocheter - which means she competed in three 3-minute trials for the knitting competition then speed-crocheted three 3-minute trials all within the space of about a half hour.

We spied this little ewe across the aisle from us. Too bad we can't introduce her to Jean's Sam the Ram (picture in 8/29/07 post).



Stayed tunes for more on the Knit Out, the goodies that just happened to fall into my bag during our sojourn to the LYS and...the gallery of Projects That Shall Never Be On My Needles - a treat not to be missed!