Friends, Knitting and Pumpkins

Located in Southern California, in a suburb of the San Fernando Valley, lies a small city called Calabasas. They are famous for their annual Pumpkin Festival. Having lived near the city for more than twenty years, it's not something I go to regularly. But this year was special. A friend that I "know" from Ravelry was traveling through our state while on vacation with her husband.
She lives in Chicago, so she was a long way from home, and this may be our only chance to actually meet face to face. When she found out about the Pumpkin Festival, she scheduled in a Saturday of her vacation to go and for us to meet up there, in person, for the very first time. You see, Michelle has a serious thing for pumpkin. It's one of her favorite foods, so the idea of a festival with food booths and pumpkin themes was a wonderland to her.

Saturday dawned a little foggy and cool, but being Southern California it burned off by ten am or so. I arrived at the gate of the Pumpkin Festival, excited to finally meet up with her. We were texting back and forth on our phones trying to locate each other. We finally found one another and we were off on our adventure of exploring every booth, exhibit and pumpkin food concoction ever thought up.

One of the most interesting food items that we found was a pumpkin whoopie pie. I just had to take a picture of it to show people. Isn't it amazing what food creations people can come up with when there is a theme involved? I didn't try the whoopie pie but Michelle did. She said it was good but very rich. We also sampled pumpkin cakes, pies, cheesecake, cookies, scones and a score of other pumpkin goodies. There were even things like Pumpkin Olive Oil, Pumpkin Spice Vinegar, Pumpkin Salsa and other oddities.

When it came time for lunch, we weren't all that hungry, but the food choices were endless. I don't know what it's like where you live, but in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, Food Trucks are big business. They have competitions, cook offs and you can actually get a Twitter feed from your favorite food truck so you can find it when you have a craving for it. Every time they change their location during the day, they post it on Twitter. (Just for the record, I don't follow any food truck tweets.)

The Pumpkin Festival had scores of Food Trucks. They were all parked toward the back side of the festival, so we headed that direction. There were so many choices! Besides the typical Fair foods, like funnel cakes, kettle corn, and deep fried items, you could have Thai food, barbecue, Mexican food, pulled pork, smoked tri-tip roast or chicken, burgers and fries and endless other choices. Michelle and I settled on splitting a Chicken Quesadilla from the Mexican food truck and were fortunate enough to find an empty table with an umbrella for shade. Which was a good thing, because at this point it was about ninety degrees and we were hot, thirsty and needed to sit a bit.


We also met up with another Ravelry friend while we were there. She and her family go to the Pumpkin Festival every year, she lives right there in Calabasas. So Dani met up with us while we were eating and took a few minutes away from her kids and the rest of her family to chat with us. I met Dani on Ravelry several years ago, and when we realized we only lived ten minutes from each other, we have been best friends ever since.


Of course, being good little Outlaw Knitters, we both had sock knitting with us, so after we ate we sat in the shade, resting and chatting and knitting on our socks. Both of us had cast on Halloween socks a few days before, which we thought was amusing.


After our rest we went and explored another section of the festival. Here we bought matching Calabasas Pumpkin Festival tee shirts. That's Michelle in the picture holding hers up. That was at the booth for the City of Calabasas. I also bought a canvas bag with a pumpkin on it because we all know that you just can't have too many knitting bags!


Sadly, before we knew it, the day was over and it was time for us to go.

We had a great time, even if it was hot, and said our goodbyes. Is there anything better than meeting up with friends and spending the day chatting, eating and knitting? I don't think so.

National I Love Yarn Day!

October 14th is national I Love Yarn Day! This year is the first year of this declared holiday. Who thought it up? The Craft Yarn Council. Yes, there really is such a thing. According to their website the purpose of I Love Yarn Day is to: Show it off, tag with it, carry it, gather with friends. Declare your LOVE! Get involved. While I Love Yarn Day is a time to share your passion by knitting or crocheting in public and teaching others how to engage in your craft of choice, it is also a time to get more involved in charity crafting and use social media to share your wares and love for yarn.

Whoever thought this up deserves a medal. Who loves yarn more than knitters? So go out in public with your knitting and show everyone you support this commemorative day brought to us by the Yarn Craft Council.

Oh The Horror!

I am a fairly young woman. 33 isn't all that old. Of course ask my kids and I am borderline senior citizen. I am also fairly new to the yarn arts. I learned to crochet years ago but only a single stitch. I have been working on expanding my talents. In December of 08 I got a wild hair up my bum and taught myself to knit. And I love it. I still crochet but I think its more difficult. Anyhow, recently I have begun knitting in public. It sounds harmless. I guess that the needles can be looked upon as weapons. My husband will certainly reconsider stealing any of my fries! But I love to knit and my schedule is hectic so I have to find my spurts.

I started out doing it at school. I attend a community college working on an accounting degree (already work as an accountant....this won't make me lose outlaw status will it?) and so before, after, and in between classes out came whatever project I had on me. But recently my addiction became stronger.

Earlier this week I went to an indian restaurant (east...not native americans). I simply love gorging on this spinach fried bread they have. I finished before my companions and proceeded to get anxious and sweat. I thought about it, got nervous. I had heard how people stared at knitters and here it was in the back of my mind. Then I bucked up, maybe I wouldn't need to worry. And who cares? I am not hurting anyone. So out came the project. And out came the stares. I could feel it all over. The couple at the table to my left were the worst. They stared until I looked up. I figured it out and finally just knitted and stared at them while they shifted nervously in their seats. I looked down a few times on the purl stitches cause I am not as comfy with those. But I never gave up. Hubby started giggling at my staredown. My father in law couldn't figure out what was going on.

Today we went to a wing place. Normally I wouldn't think to knit there BUT they gave me some handy wipes and I was nice and clean. So out the project came. Not too bad this time but two younger ladies (younger than me, 20's-ish) started pointing and giggling. This actually upset hubby to no end. That's ok. When we got up to leave we had to walk by them. I stared at the brunette's head real hard, burst into laughter and said "Babe, this one is going gray before me!!". That chick sucked in more air than a brand spanking new Hoover.

Imagine if I had a tank top of and two of my tattoo's hanging out.

Photo Shoot Knitting

I posted this a few days ago on my blog but had to share it here too! :

So, my friend asked me to do makeup for one of his photo shoots, because in my former life I was a hairdresser and makeup artist. So while I will never on purpose do that professionally again, I do occasionally do it for fun. So of course I brought Bear and My knitting.

Bas has a great talent for photography and the pictures came out great!

My knitting striking a seductive pose...

This has got to break some sort of physics law right?

That's good, a little to the left...

It takes three people to stare at one girl! ;)

The kiddos were havin' fun while we worked.

Knitting In Public... Mrs. H Style

Am I an Outlaw Knitter? Oh, hell yeah, and proud of it. I knit in public. Last weekend I took my hat-in-progress to the annual Friendship Festival. But I wasn't feeling friendly. While standing in line, waiting to put my youngest Outlaw-In-Training on the rides, I pulled the hat out of my GoKnit Pouch and started to work the decreases for the crown. I was cruising right along... k7, k2tog... watching the Sizzler spinning around at breakneck speed, when I noticed them. A couple of snot-nosed little punks creeping up in line. I watched as they worked their way up, one person at a time. When they started to eye the spot in front of my little girl, I stepped up, needles glinting in the sun. My eyes narrowed as I stared them down. The skinny one started to sweat and the shorter, rounder one shuffled his feet. My needles clicked menacingly. They turned and slunk back to the end of the line. I smiled an evil little smile as I watched them go. Yeah... I'm an Outlaw Knitter. And Outlaw Knitters don't take cutting in line lightly.