Gobsmacked

My 11 year old tells me it's his new favorite word. I have had some recent experience of it. I went to my first Stitches Midwest.

I have a friend whose knitting life has recently been revealed (at least, to me). She knew about Stitches and emailed me. I went to the website and found the Gloryland.

I really wanted it all, but, having failed to bend time and space to my will, with one of my remaining shreds of sanity, I registered for "Everything Beyond Knit and Purl" and "Mastering Yarn Substitution: Art, Science or Black Magic." I needed the first one because, even though I know all knitting is made up of knitting and purling, I also know there is a world of permutations and re-combinations out there. There are cables. There is lace. There are three-dimensional objects. I needed the second one because of my conviction that knitting is, in point of fact, magic. You may call them patterns. I know they are incantations which, with the use of two wands, turn string into cables, into lace, into three dimensional objects. Also because so far I have demonstrated a lamentable tendency to fall in love with yarn before I have any idea what to do with it.

And then, there was THE MARKET. Hand-dyed rovings that could be wonderful, one of a kind yarns. The drop spindles and spinning wheels to effect the transformation . Every knitting book you ever wanted,

including the ones you didn't know you wanted.















Needles. Gadgets. Cases and Bags. Thingies and doodads. All absolute necessities.

And yarns. Hand-spun and hand-dyed one of a kind yarns. Yarns by companies your local yarn store doesn't carry. Or companies they carry, but in colors they don't. Like Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Brick, and Lorna's Laces Shepherd's Sock in Gold Hill.

No wonder at one point I completely lost my sense of direction and stood, turning, in the middle of the market. Yarn-stupid. Gobsmacked.