Thanks Creativ and Happy Birthday to Us

The Creativ Festival was incredible - we had the pre-show jitters ("What if no one comes? What if they think its lame?"). Any of those thoughts completely disappeared within 1 hour of the show opening. We had 10 -15 people at our booth at all times, asking questions, knitting squares, offering donations, and generally cheering us on. We met some of the rock stars of knitting, Mags Kandis, Lucy Neatby and Wanietta, as well as many altru-knitters.

An incredible number of warm hearted people came over to the booth with donations, kind words, questions, and great skills. Many, many thanks to you who sat with us and knit and crocheted during the weekend. We won't soon forget the sight of sometimes a dozen people, hands busy, working on squares or stitching squares together into blankets. There were times when people had to sit on the floors because chairs were overflowing! The yarn and needles were donated by Moda Dea and Susan Bates, and we got many many compliments and questions about the materials - gorgeous to knit with. We finished 4 blankets at the show, and we'll have a few more before we are through. We'll post photos when we have them - Anita and I carried what we could on the train, and Joyce is bringing the rest on the weekend for us. Thanks for the rescue, there, Joyce.

So, back to the show - our first night, we met up with Dilys (Sew Be It Studio) in person for the first time. And, who should be knitting at the next table, but Wanietta, Canada's fastest knitter. A great knitter, and wonderful, funny story teller. Stephanie, we'll be pulling for you as fastest crocheter next year. This contest will stick with us, because they donated the strips and squares that were produced during the contest to us, and we'll be assembling them into blankets.

At the show, we met Mags Kandis in person. She was lovely to meet, and donated some of her sample items to our cause. Thank you, Mags, once again. She even signed my copy of her book. Her booth was across from ours at the show, beside Rose Haven Farms. What lovely yarns they have! Our neighbours were alpacas. No, really, they brought in some live alpacas to the show. At the end of the show, I caved and bought some black alpaca yarn. That will be a real pleasure to work with.

Then, there were the women of the Toronto Downtown Knit Collective. We feel like we were adopted for the weekend! Denise, Joan, and all the others - you were wonderful! Your generosity is well appreciated, and we both wish we could get to a few meetings. What a resource to the city, and to our project this weekend.

And we met Lucy Neatby, who was very kind and interested in our project. She hasn't heard the last of us, I am afraid!

Check out the pictures of the show. We can't go too far without mentioning our amazing sponsors (you can link to them on the right sidebar): The Creativ Festival (of course), Air Labrador, the Toronto Hilton, Fleece Artist, Susan Bates and Moda Dea yarn.

Many people mentioned that they'd like to drop off additional items - that's great. We're looking for things before December 31st. You can leave them at any of our drop-off locations in Toronto or Ottawa (see right side-bar for addresses).

So here's what we learned at the show: Knitters and crochetters have hearts of gold. Even the rock stars of knitting and other booth owners came took the time to come over and cheer us on, grabbing a ball of yarn at times, and knitting us a square at their own booths. People we had only met by e-mail came, gave us their time and energy, and made our cause their cause.

People are good.

And finding that out was the best 40th birthday present you could have given us.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Amy and Anita