Local Colour

Saturday, the intrepid Knitty-Amy and I carpooled it up to Kitchener for the Kitchener-Waterloo Guild’s Knitters Fair. I’d never been before, so I don’t know what I was expecting, but no matter what I thought I’d find I was unprepared for what I found.

Intrepidamy

(Our intrepid Amy is seen here triumphant and yarn laden..demonstrating the glorious knitterly glow that you get when you score discontinued favourite cotton – on sale. It was either that or the coffee. )

The show isn’t the biggest around, if you’re thinking Rhinebeck or Maryland you’re going to be right put out (first of all…there are no sheep wandering around the Bingeman’s ballroom) and if you’re a spinner…well. I urge you to remember the name “Knitter’s Fair”. There’s precious little in the way of roving and I didn’t see any wheels for sale…but it’s not like they said there would be. Instead, there was yarn. Oodles of yarn. Aisles and aisles of interesting, local awesome stuff. There’s a list of vendors here….and some of them I’d never seen before. My favourite was Rosa Wang (sorry, no website) where I scored some mystery laceweight. This one changes colour over long repeats.

Lace

although this is the least accurate picture of the yarn possible. In reality is is much less… Well, much less every colour except green and the green isn’t that crazy lime green that’s there, more like a loden green. The yellow is more like yellow ochre, a muddy dirty colour …and the red isn’t red, it’s rust. It has no sky blue at all, that’s just some camera trick. In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t know why I showed you this picture at all. Imagine that this yarn is actually all the good colours of indian food.

Cashmere

This yarn is the prize. It changes from navy blue to purply blue, is almost iridescent and reminds me of the necks of mallard ducks. (Not that I spend that much time thinking about duck necks, and I know that duck necks are more green than blue…but you know what I mean. The colour thing is not going well today) and my pets….it is cashmere. A huge, honking ball of 100% cashmere laceweight. I feel happy when I hold it. Very happy. (I won’t tell you what I paid because A) discussing how much you paid for stuff is a little bit in poor taste and B) it was so cheap that any of you who know where I live would come here and roll me for it. It would be worth the gas money.)

The cashmere score is almost enough to take the sting out of Saturday’s ritual humiliation. ( You knew there had to be one, didn’t you? When is there not?) I met Cara, Carol, Monica, Renee and hundreds of other people. I talked with the owners of Koigu, and the very nice lady who runs the Canadian Guild of Knitters….oh…you know. Everyone. The whole time that I met everyone I could scarcely think, obsessing and wondering if they had noticed my hair. You see, in my excitement and nervousness about all the people and the books and the driving and the Amy and all of it…..

I forgot to rinse the shampoo out of my hair.

I spent the entire day with most of my hair stuck down to my head in the most stiff and sticky way possible. I say “most” because in places the shampoo must have wiped off on my towel and those parts weren’t stiff, but merely resembled the oiliness of a seals coat. I noticed my head was heavy on the way there, but it wasn’t until I got to the ladies room at the Fair that I realized what was going on in all of it’s horrifying detail. In between meeting and greeting lovely knitters I tried to fluff it up and only succeeded in practically getting my hand stuck in the cemented slick mass while tangling it beyond all recognition. By then end of the attempted fix it was like I had fallen into a vat of bryl cream and then tried to sort it out with a blender. Amy comforted me by saying that at least it wasn’t frizzy. Good point. POINTY OIL CHUNKS aren’t frizzy. If you met me for the first time on Saturday I beg you to forget my appearance and seeming obsession with touching the top of my head. Please give me a second chance. I’m not usually that odd and I swear I’m smart enough to execute both steps of hair washing most days.

Sigh. At least I was wearing pants.