I have lost all of my grip. This morning I jolted awake in a huge panic. Should I be sleeping? Was I missing a plane? What state was I in? What day was it? (The plane one is particularly troubling. The tour moves so fast that if I miss a plane, I miss an event. There’s no time to make it up or get it together. If I sleep too long or screw up time zones or something, the whole thing tanks.) It took me about five minutes of terrorized lying in the dark to work it all out. I am in Utah. It is Saturday. I am going to California, and it is 6:30am. I am not late.

It’s a wonder it only took me 5 minutes to work it out. The trip is zipping right along, so fast that I am scarcely breathing. Thursday was Eugene, Oregon. Eugene holds the honoured place of being the city that I spent the least amount of time in, only 16 hours. This is a real shame because it’s a pretty town. I comfort myself by knowing that I saw at least one really cool thing – a dust devil, (described to me most charmingly by my cab driver as “a very small storm”), drank an excellent beer…

(Mirror pond, a nice local from Oregon)

and that I got to meet the best of Eugene : the knitters.

(Blurry knitters. I swear I am going to flush this camera.)

Books Without Borders hosted the event, the pizza guy from next door did the sound and it was charming all around. Three cheers for Amelia, who handled the hordes with charm and grace. (As you would imagine, Amelia is a book lady who also knows the ways of yarn. It helps.)

Here’s Jen (check out her shop. Cute, cute, cute. Click it just for the baby pictures. They’re enough to make your ovaries cramp.)

Kim and Bonnie. Bonnie was that Lone member of Team Costa Rica in the knitting olympics. She just happened to be passing by.

Jodie (and her patient and handsome muggle Anthony.)

Jodie is the clever knitter behind the Saturday Market Bag.

Irie was there (but she ducked out before I could meet her. She has a wonderful podcast.) Lori came, the Red Hot Knitters came…

(Oregon is apparently just covered in knitters.) there was Crissy

a massage student who practically made me weep in public by offering me a massage that I didn’t have time to accept. (Seriously. What sort of a taunting is that from the universe?)

Our lady Jae of the comments…

(Kind enough to offer to take me for a beer I didn’t have time to accept. See the theme? It’s killing me.)

Lo! A pack of free range knitbloggers appears before me!

Fyberduck, Ewe Spinster, and Miriam, Fyberduck even gave me a wee duck with a handspun (cashmere) itty-bitty, teeny-tiny, micro snowdrop shawl on. I think it is (despite my usual aversion to stuffed animals) extremely compelling. It has even made me smile four or five times since I got it. I think it’s the knitting.

Next up…

Three small knitters. Well. Two small knitters. Luca and Melissa are full fledged knitters, but Noah is not yet. (He seemed to me to be two or three.) I am absolutely certain that he will be though, since his end of evening meltdown (which followed two hours of really, really good behaviour that kept him up past bedtime) consisted of him crying that he wanted to knit and have yarn. His mum Monique whisked him away (I’m sure he got yarn) but I can’t tell you how much I sympathized with him. At the end of a long hard day where I was very good I often want to cry until someone gives me yarn and lets me knit.

Finally, there’s one in every crowd.

Meet April. Look at circumference of April. Look at the circumference of the beautiful Kaffe inspired bag in front of her.

Know that before the knitting muses directed one of their cruel gauge capers in Aprils direction, that was to be a sweater. For her.

Once the butt of a knitting muses intarsia gauge jokes, there is little room for recovery. April figured it though. Exit sleeves and neck, enter a seam along the bottom and a lining…and whammo. Bag.

April is not going gently into that good night.

I’m off to California. Utah was beyond wonderful, and will get a whole post of it’s own. I’m a little behind. (I’ve also screwed up my knitting in a fantastic way that is taking whole States to recover from. Lack of sleep and coffee makes you an easy target for the muses.)