Remember how I titled my last entry “Librarians are Knitters, Too”? I know that it’s true. Pat and Lynda work with me and they are knitters. I have stumbled across knitting blogs created by librarians. I know they are out there. And yet, at the Massachusetts Library Conference, attending by over 550 librarians, I was the only one knitting. The. only. one. This did not particularly bother me but, honestly, I was a bit surprised. I felt a little self-conscious when I hauled out the knitting at my first workshop – Numerology (and not the New Agey exciting kind but rather the how-much-does-it-cost-to-catalog-a-book kind) – but I perservered and was glad for it. It definitely made the session time go faster and I got a lot done on the wildfoote sock.
After lunch I attended another session, this one about libraries and blogs and wikis and RSS. While I was waiting for things to start I pulled out the knitting and was surprised to have another librarian come rushing over to me. She had apparently been in the earlier session and had seen me knitting and wanted to know what I was working on. I showed her the sock (nearly to the toe decreases at this point) and she asked some questions about sock knitting, having never done one herself. I answered her questions and told her I was a little worried that the presenter would think I was being rude for knitting but she assured me that she didn’t think that was the case. At this point, Amy, the presenter for the current session, looked up and said, “Are you talking about knitting during this session? Please, feel free! If I could knit and give my talk at the same time, believe me, I would do it!” That put me completely at ease and I happily knitted away.
Until I noticed something. Something very scary. Something in fact quite horrifying. My yarn was almost gone. My yarn was almost gone and I still had to finish the rest of the foot and the toe decreases. I only bought 2 skeins of this yarn, one for each sock. I either had to rip out this sock and make the cuff and leg shorter or get more yarn. If I decided to get more yarn I wouldn’t be able to keep knitting during the session I was in because I was running out of yarn. I made an executive decision right then and there. I ripped out the sock and started over. Sigh.
By the time the sock was ripped out and re-cast the session was over. It was time for a beer break. I headed for the lounge and got myself a drink and waited for Amy. We hung out for a while and then she want to her last session of the day and I went up to the room to change my clothes and that’s when I took this picture.
I knit more on the second day of the conference and managed to get to the gusset decreases by the time everything was over. I did take the sock out to the beach since it was a beautiful day. Here’s a picture of the sock and surf.
Nice, huh? I could definitely have hung around for another day or two. Alas, it was time to head home. I was greeted by a very pissed off Mason who chose to show his displeasure at my absence by attacking the 2 skeins of Lorna’s Laces. I spent the rest of last night de-tangling yarn. Blech.
Carole — love your blog! KEEP writing ! Helen
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