Yay for yarn swap!

Yesterday I took Arthur to the knitting afternoon and yarn swap. He was supposed to keep me from bringing home too much stuff! Right.

In the morning Arthur and Stephen went for a gigantic bike ride to a hobby shop to look for a certain kind of wheel. (It's scientific, don't ask...) And then Elaine and I had to zoom downtown on the bike and meet them, and then we exchanged bikes and kids, and Stephen and Elaine went off to Lammas Land to play and Arthur and I set off for the Grads Club to meet the knitters. It turned out we were more efficient at all this than we had thought, so we got there first and picked out the seats by the window. Alison arrived next with a bag of yarn and a bag of fabric, including this marvy jacket direct from the disco years. (edited to add: read all about it at her blog!) Arthur snatched it up in a flash! (And you can have a picture of him jumping out of the frame, or perhaps one with his eyes closed!) Liberace, here we come!

Over the afternoon he got hold of some silver yarn, gold, red fun fur, and a ball of Rowan Big Tuft! Oh, and a bunny, too! And a craft magazine, not in the picture... We figure a snazzy strap for his electric guitar with the wild stuff, and the wool will get knitted on to his grey Big Wool scarf.

One of the highlights of the afternoon for him was the gigantic knitting going on! There was a woman there knitting 2 strands of finger-knit yarn together on dowel needles that must have been an inch in diameter! Arthur was impressed, and gladly knit her a row or two. Once all the yarn was knit up, it became a sort of flag, or sign: Knitting is going on here, see? Arthur also enjoyed tossing the yarn around, poking in the new bags for something good, chatting, watching the punters out the window and so on.

I felt a bit moderate compared to him, and got a few wee balls -- some teal chenille and some fuzzy stuff that goes with it nicely for a little scarf, some weird pretty multicoloured stuff (100% unknown fibres, with nubby bits), some merino that will go in the yarn pile for the afghan, and a few little scraps of Colinette stuff that I will put together with my little scraps of Colinette. I asked Arthur, "Do you think I should take these bits, and then I've got some bits left over from that cushion, and I could ... um... put them together somehow?" And he said, "No." And that was his final word, but heck, I'm the mom, so I took them anyways, and now am making a circle of Colinette scraps which I might one day felt, and then we'd have a little hot pad thingy. Or I'll hang it on the wall... We shall see. I also snagged a book, Dazzling Knits, which is full of ideas.

So, a fun afternoon for all. Must do it again sometime... There was a suggestion we have another swap shortly before we leave town, but then I'd have to go, drop my bag of stuff and run away, and I'm sure not takin' any kids!