2010 World Wide Knit-in-Public Day - I love Challenges!

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It was just a few minutes before our event, and I pulled up in front of the restaurant we were using for WWKiP this year. I was running a bit late, but had it all planned in my mind for set-up of the registration table, the Sponsors' Table, and the table our speaker would be using, so I wasn't sweating it at all - until I saw this:

Since I'd spoken to both restaurant managers within the past two weeks, I was dumbfounded. But closed they were, and WWKiP participants were arriving as I stood there in disbelief.

It took seconds to sink in, and a few minutes to re-think and move to Plan B. Unknown numbers of people were expecting their WWKiP, and I had to think fast.

First, I drove over very quickly to a nearby restaurant a mile away to ask if we could move there. The restaurant wasn't open for another hour, but I could see movement back in the kitchen, and pounded on the door until a somewhat bewildered manager opened. After all, it isn't every Saturday morning that some crazy woman is pounding on your restaurant door an hour early.

But the crazy woman had a knitting emergency!!! As I explained the problem, he immediately welcomed our group, but mentioned that he was short on staff and that they wouldn't be there for another 45 minutes. Ahhh, I said, not a problem - we knitters come prepared with our own personal entertainment.

After giving him a giant hug for allowing our group inside his restaurant early, I zoomed back to the Stupid Restaurant and posted our "new meeting place" sign:

Notice the other small pink sticky-notes? Those are two other groups who were planning to use the Stupid Restaurant, and had also left memos about where they had moved on.

At the Great and Wonderful Erbelli's Restaurant (that's what I call them, but their sign doesn't include the superlatives) we quickly set up our WWKiP. I say "we" because several of the gals helped me drag stuff in, set up our tables and generally get the show up and rolling. Thank you to Jan and Karen - your help was much appreciated!!

Barb Marr, of Marr Haven Wool Farm in Allegan, gave a great presentation on being a small business owner of a Merino-Rambouillet sheep farm. She's funny, and quite entertaining, and we all enjoyed her discussion of the trials and tribulations of buying rams, owning sheep, and the differences in her wool. Great talk, Barb!

She also donated beautiful yarn for our WWKiP drawings.

Other wonderful Sponsors for the KazooYarnies' 2010 WWKiP included Ideal Images of Kalamazoo, Your Local Yarn Shop of Battle Creek, Studio June Yarn of Kalamazoo, Becky Chambers and Kay Alexander, both KazooYarnies. Here's their generous donations:


One of our KazooYarnies made special knitterly buttons with some fabulous mottoes, and they were only $2 each. I quickly snagged one of the "Charity Knitter" buttons.

The food at Erbelli's was great, and having a bar made it even better. I was surely tempted, and encouraged by very understanding K-i-P friends. However, the worst was over and the WWKiP was going well. Here's our group with their door prizes:



Note: Linda (front right) was having a glass of wine for me, which I made me feel a whole lot better.

Thanks to our best-of-best Sponsors for their generous yarnie prizes - many of our group went home smiling because of you.

We also did show-and-tell, and were inspired by beautiful projects - here's just a few:


Below is the ChickenLady, aka Kim Wood, who won a ten-pack of beautiful Cascade 220 wool yarn, donated by Your Local Yarn Shop. Kim sure is smiling - she won the "farthest from home" Grand Prize by driving 35 miles one way to our WWKiP!




I want to thank everyone who came to this year's World Wide Knit-in-Public. Sorry for the temporary disruption, but sure glad you were able to share a really fun afternoon! Special thanks to Barb Marr of Marr Haven Wood Farm - hope you can join us at one of our regular K-i-Ps to share more sheep stories!