Sunday, April 28, 2013

See my vest, see my vest!

Yesterday I expanded by knitting shopping horizons and went to the Downtown Knit Collective's annual Knitters' Frolic in Toronto.  The Guild organized a bus to the Frolic, and for ten measly dollars, I sat in comfort on a big yellow school bus and chatted and knitted while someone else worried about driving and parking (shout outs to Dee-Anne for being a rockin' chauffeur!).  I've been to the local Knitters' Fair a number of times, and it was at the Fair that I first learned about the Guild.  I've been part of the planning committee for the Fair for the last two years, and part of the reason I wanted to check out the Frolic was to compare notes and see if we could be doing things any differently/better. 

Let's start with what I bought:

I finally own a yarn bowl!  I've been seeing these at every fair and festival and yesterday I took the plunge and bought one.  This little beauty came from a vendor from Quebec, called Sheppard Handmade.  I toured the whole Frolic before coming back to buy my pottery here.  Her stuff was the best by far.  I especially like that the notch for your yarn is SMOOTH.  Every time I've seen other yarn bowls, if you run your finger along the notch it's all catchy and grabby, and the exact opposite of what you would want for your yarn.  Kudos Sheppard Handmade!
 
Look how cute it is!

She also makes ceramic buttons, so I search through the piles and found 6 relatively small buttons for my finished paulie cardigan.  I sewed them on when I got home, and now my sweater is officially complete.  Ps. I love moo cards for tags on yarn and knitting notions, don't you?

My favourite project bag maker, Zig Zag Stitches.  The robots make me think of Fuzzyhead, so I've decided this project bag will be for boy projects, like boy socks.  Which leads me to...

The TARDIS yarn from indigodragonfly!  Fuzzyhead and I watch Dr. Who on a regular basis and I thought this would add some much-needed colour to his handmade sock collection.

Yarn bowl in action, securing Maeva from rolling around all over the place.

I didn't buy a whole lot, since I haven't gone through the stuff I already have in my stash, and I have big, exciting plans for it.  I brought $200 cash to the Frolic, and I still have $65 left over.  I did real good!

I liked the Frolic a lot over all, they had a great selection of vendors, including some I had never seen before at the Fair.  The venue was really nice too, it was held at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, which was pretty and open and easy to navigate.  The vendors were mostly set up through different rooms on the main floor, with a small strip of vendors upstairs (only about 5 in total, which makes me think they were last-minute additions).  They also had fantastic food options - the Knit Cafe handled all the food service, and I loved the sandwiches Catherine and I shared.  Everything was vegetarian, which also happened to be what I was in the mood for, and the sandwiches were very interesting.  We shared a grilled zucchini and mozzarella and a sweet potato and cheddar sandwich.  Sweet potato on a sandwich!  I have never even thought to do that.  I rushed home to tell Fuzzyhead about my sandwich epiphany.  

And of course, there were some things that could have been improved on, and I'm keeping these ideas in mind as I work with the Fair committee.  There was no bank machine on site, which caused a hiccup for the two people I was shopping with when they needed more moola and many of the vendors don't accept plastic forms of payment.  At the Fair's previous location, Bingemans, there was a bank machine on site which, I heard, regularly runs out of cash before the day is over.  At the Aud this year, there are TWO bank machines on site, and they care about keeping them full.  Hooray!  Our next committee meeting is coming up soon and I'll prepare a run-down of my thoughts and comparisons, since the only committee members who went to the Frolic were Catherine and I.

In current project news, I'm making good progress on Maeva, I'm on to the second sock, and I'm more than halfway done the foot.  I'm debating whether I should start a second project at the same time (gasp!) since I completed neglected Maeva while I worked on paulie.  The very next project for me will be my Annis shawl, and I hope I can get that one on the needles by the end of the moth.

Happy knitting,

Onward,

vrock


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