Boy, the new additions to my closet these days . . .

Mom and I went to the craft show today and met my sister and niece. Beautiful, perfect weather. Sunny, mid-seventies for temperature, really lovely. We all had a good time. (I didn’t take any pictures, though–there was a sign at the ticket booth forbidding audio and video recorders, and while I didn’t expect there to be a problem taking a snapshot of my family members outside, I figured it was better not to risk it). And we all bought pretty things that we may not exactly have needed.

Like, say a hat. A nice, two-toned, polar-fleece hat, with a snazzy little pin with reds and grays. (A pin which, really, could probably be duplicated from any number of different yarns in my stash . .. something to think about . . . )

Or, maybe, a snazzy, yellow straw hat with a taupe ribbon band, with a few crystal beads for good measure?

And then, who doesn’t love earrings? Silver drop earrings that are unique without being too weird to wear? (Having longish, curly hair is great for this–you can push the polite, earring envelope a lot further when most people aren’t going to get a good look at your earrings anyway.) From two different vendors, both of whom I’ve bought jewelry from in the past. In fact, the “cage” earrings on the right, with the black pearls are from the person who sold me that runaway necklace I mentioned last night. The other ones from a craftsperson who made one of my absolute favorite pair of earrings. Isn’t it nice to find a person whose work you like, and then be lucky enough to keep finding them at craft shows so you can buy more?? (grin)

Really, though, I’m going to be good now and stop buying things for a while. I think my Visa card is going to go into shock, and it needs time to recover before Rhinebeck!

Ooh . . . as a bonus, while looking at so many beautiful things by so many talented people–jewelry, pottery, glass, furniture . . . things I could never make in a million years . . . I got two compliments on my Flower Basket Shawl, which I wore today. One was from a glassmaker who makes beads for necklaces and earrings. (Mom bought one of her necklaces.) She asked if I’d bought it at the fair and I said I’d made it. Her reply was “Oh, I could never do that.” Um, you work with burning hot, melted glass, and, you find yarn intimidating?? The other was from another shopper, but the conversation was almost exactly the same.

I suppose that when you’re involved in a craft yourself, and know how to do it, it seems easy–like reading or knowing how to program your VCR . . . once you’ve learned something, and have a grasp of how and why it works, you have a hard time conceiving that other people couldn’t grasp the same thing. (If I can do it, so can you!) Except, of course, it’s not always that easy. And there are skill factors to consider–you can know how to knit but not yet be an expert . . . but, still, knitting is not as intimidating as blowing glass. You have to work really, really hard to injure yourself knitting, but glass-blowing, black-smithing . . . these are dangerous!

Knitting, as we all know, is only dangerous to your peace of mind. It’s soothing, to be sure. Happy, relaxing, creative. And then there are the times when nothing works. Or, say . . . purely hypothetically . . . you misread a chart on your lace knitting while talking on the phone and end up spending the next hour and a half trying to salvage and then frogging back four rows of knitting so that you end up behind your starting point of that knitting session, and have a tangle of Zephyr yarn all over your bedroom floor that your dog wants to play with.

Purely hypothetically, of course. It’s not like anything like that happened to me last night. Oh no. I wouldn’t want you to think that!

Come to think of it, maybe risking glass-blowing burns doesn’t sound so scary, after all.

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