A blizzard is for knitting

The nor'easter-blizzard currently visiting New England (and several, more southerly states) has compelled me to think of all the happy knitters who are "hunkered down" (a term oft-used of late) with their needles and yarn. I count myself among them, certainly, though I keep reminding myself that if the forecast had played out only a wee bit differently, I would at the moment be staring, in an opiate haze, at my left foot in a fiberglass cast, since I was scheduled for surgery at 8 a.m.  Well, life turns on a dime, doesn't it? Along comes a Weather Event, accompanied by a Travel Ban, and expectations of power outages, foodlessness, and all that other sort of fun stuff, and the Surgical Center shuts down for the nonce. FORTUNATELY, none of the bad stuff has come to pass except for lots and lots of snow (it's still falling). We have at least two feet, but there are higher drifts.

I am now knitting that hat with the vulgar but realistic message mentioned on the previous post. I shall post an image of the FO soon, I hope.

Where is the Subaru?

Where is the nuthatch?

***

Luckily the snow didn't hit until after Brandon Mably gave his workshop at Knit One, Quilt Too in Barrington, Rhode Island, on Sunday the 25th.

It was overwhelmingly well-attended, and all of the knitters, strung around the perimeter likecloselyplacedpickets in a fence, diligently followed the "poppies" Fair Isle graph distributed at the start. Brandon played mixtapes of music to knit by so as, he said, in a voice that brooked no dissent, to discourage talking and encourage knitting. Many knitters sang along to the Beatles, highlights from the musical "Hair," and other pop tunes that delivered me swiftly to my high school cafeteria at lunchtime, ca. 1971.

You can see, behind Brandon, some of the poppies swatches pinned to cardboard; here are more. (Mine is in the middle, on the pink plastic needle.)

It was intense, gentle knitters, and it was long. The room was very hot and very cramped. (I kept getting flashbacks to knitting on the rush-hour N train as I traveled to and from school, in those dark old days when I also used knitting needles as protection against muggers.) Knitting in such close quarters, with no table to hold my yarn or other stuff, was like one of those dreams I sometimes have, in which mechanical entities like computers and cars repeatedly malfunction, and I wake up just as I'm about to delete my magnum opus, or drive over a cliff. 

After a while I just couldn't stick it out. And so I left an hour early, despite Brandon's stern warning that I would be missing the best part.

What is this thing called elbow room?

Did I learn anything at this workshop?
Yes.
Was it worthwhile?
I believe that many of those who attended would reply affirmatively.

Charming handknits from the needles of Brandon Mably and Kaffe Fassett.