No, it’s not over yet.* Yesterday was all-bluegrass, all-day. And yes, part of it was in a church. One of the downtown Baptist churches loans their building every year as one of the venues for the festival. The sanctuary is a perfect place to play bluegrass; the sound is good, the surroundings are simple and lovely. The performers always like playing that stage, and it always shows.
Highlights? It was one of those great bluegrass days. Uncle Earl again was superb. The John Cowan band did a marvelous performance at the church in the afternoon, and the Wilders and Psychograss were wonderful. This morning is a gospel show at the main pavilion stage, followed by a great lineup of some of the best in bluegrass.
Knitting? Here you go. The Candy Stripe sock:
I discovered that I don’t mind doing heel stitch while bluegrass is going on. I suppose I could save all my sock heels until February every year.
And I managed to work in a couple of pattern repeats of this:
I sat up in the church balcony all afternoon, and at least part of the time there was enough light to work on this a bit.
I haven’t seen many knitters at the festival. A friend of ours was there yesterday with a scarf that she is working on, and I saw a woman down in the church seats yesterday with what looked like a sweater in her lap. Other than that, nothing. I think I’m an oddity. In between sets, I stand up and knit, to stretch out a bit. A woman came up to me Thursday night and said “It’s good to see you back with your knitting”. And Friday night I was standing and knitting during a break. After a while I noticed a young girl (maybe about 11?) standing next to me quietly, watching. When I talked to her, she got shy and left, but she clearly was either fascinated or horrified by what I was doing. I’ve gotten a number of “what the heck are you knitting?” comments, and a couple of “I didn’t bring my knitting because I can’t see in here” comments. Well, that doesn’t stop me. I just fix the mistakes later. A couple of times I’ve had to take the knitting out back where I can see it and give it a thrashing, but overall I’ve only had a couple of malfunctions.
I’m off for more coffee, then more bluegrass. There will be a final report later!
*Just be glad that I have no idea how to attach sound files to this, or you’d have to listen to bluegrass while reading about it.
What a fun and wonderful place to knit at! Sounds like the knitting and music is going great! I hope you enjoyed the festival! Love the sock colors! Thanks for sending me the pics…but I couldn’t open them for some reason? I have been having computer issues though…operator error I’m sure!
Just think of all the new Bluegrass fans you would have if you could attach sound. I think you should look into it.
Thanks for the update on the festival. I’ve never been to a Bluegrass festival. I may have to look into it.
Are you kidding? I’d love the sound files! I was brought up with bluegrass. The Opal is lovely. As is the Estonian scarf. It seems to me that not that long ago you were making a big deal of the fact that I was knitting the very same pattern during a Yarn Harlot talk. It seems as if you’re just as good at knitting lace with distractions.
Do you ever comment without reading the blog infront of you? Of course not, but I just have to 😉 First, I’m 3 days behind according to your posts and, quite frankly, your access file organizing your yarn just blew me away! ……now back to catching up to your wonderful entries :+}
That would have been fantastic to hear bluegrass while reading this! You know I found standing and knitting is actually quite relaxing, too! (waiting for my dog to run into the house)
..was this the same as the BG Fest. your shared last year? I love hearing how different people react to knitters!
Love the socks! How fun!
I think I’m knitting the Estonian wrap in the same yarn… 🙂