Tucson World Wide Knit in Public Day (WWKIP) 2011

My very first WWKIP day - in 2009 - was interesting, fun, and had multiple locations and minimalist attendance (4).

Our 2010 WWKIP day had one location (Beyond Bread), Lots of attendees, and was much more fun! I believe we had close to 30 knitters, crocheters and spinners demonstrating craftiness in public last June. Humble apologies...I have no pictures. However, we had a grand time, the food was good, the seating was a little crowded (we took up most of the East half of the restaurant), and it was all sorts of interesting. So much to see. So many projects, so many people to talk to...although I was actually being a tad bashful so I didn't speak with everyone.

This year, Linda, our WWKIP day organizer, contacted the Murphy-Wilmot Tucson Public Library regarding having our WWKIP day gathering there. They were fine with our adventure occurring in their new library cafe!
(Ok, "cafe" in this instance = tables, chairs & vending machines.)
They gave us permission to bring our own goodies so I baked "Hawaiian" Shortbread (fancy name, plain, yummy shortbread cookie) and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies. Linda brought a mondo bag of Hershey's miniatures (excellent rip-pit rewards) and coffee! (Thank you, I needed that!)

I have cheesy photos from my phone to document our public crafting.  (If I mis-name/mis-spell/mis-describe anyone, pretty please pipe up and correct me!)

On Saturday, June 11th, we claimed one of the wavy benches and some tables in the library cafe and we were joined by some known-to-me crafters and several brand new-to-me ones. We did not have LOTS of attendees, but I would say we did "Quality" over "Quantity". ;-)

I believe Linda brought especially crocheting to work on this day - a shawl in progress.
Debbie was the first to join us - wearing a crochet flowering-vine "scarf" and a hat that we thought was quite spiffy (hey, wait - did she crochet that hat too?!?). (Pictures are post-Debbie so you won't find Debbie or the hat in the pics below.)

Audrie drove from the other side of town to join us and work on a lovely kimono cardigan based on the colors/shading of Monet's Lily Pond. Diane came with two stunning bags (one knit, one sewn) that we ooh'd & aah'd over as well as some very nice stash yarn for adoption. Diane also came prepared to teach! Dena spontaneously joined us as her family explored the library and Diane gave her a knitting refresher and some stash to keep her going. (You should have seen Dena's face light up...well, you would have if I'd taken better pics...)

Emma, a very adept crocheter (whose way with words I greatly admire) is very successfully exploring sock knitting!
Jennifer turned up with some knitting AND crochet AND an absolutely Excellent WIP - 11 week old Benton.  She is entirely smitten with him, and I can't blame her. He was VERY well behaved, charming, and even though he's pretty well smitten with his Mom, he gifted us with smiles too.

 Benton was aptly dressed for our gathering:

We munched on the cookies. I broke into the chocolate first since I earned it doing some tinking (tink = knit spelled backwards. i.e. "un-knitting"). Other folks earned chocolate too although I ended up "earning" enough for everyone. (Oddly enough, the lace-knitting went fine for me. It was the simple sock that was earning me chocolate that day.)

Benton had other refreshments...

Linda pulled a few knitting books from the library stacks for inspiration and general perusal (I'm inspired to see if I can track down two for my personal library.). 

Becky from Grandma's Spinning Wheel stopped by for just a little bit. (Thanks again to the GSW folks for mentioning our WWKIP Event on their website!) Debbie and Diane had to leave after a few hours, but we were joined by Valerie, another extremely talented crocheter. She was even wearing a lovely, lacy, lavender example of her crochet talents! (Uh, no, I don't have a picture of Valerie...sorry/sigh).

(Ever notice how studiously we knit when there is a camera out?) ;-)

Various library patrons stopped by to ask about our projects and when and where we meet and...you guessed it - whether we were knitting or crocheting. The head librarian also stopped by to check on us and she seemed pointedly tickled that we were there.
We stayed for about 5 hours and then a few of us adjourned to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant for a late lunch. Even fewer of us traveled over to Grandma's Spinning Wheel to craft there for a few hours.

It was a bit of a long day, but it was inspiring and fun and I got to spend it with all sorts of lovely people - some new to me and some that I got to know a bit better.
Grateful thanks to Linda for organizing our WWKIP Day event again!