Victoria Trip part 2: FibreFest Fashion Show

Part 1 of this series is here.

Dan and I arrived just before lunch time on Friday, having driven since about 7am. I got to knit most of the way down, hurray!

One of my favourite on-the-go lunches is the Lumberjack Sandwich from Safeway. It's about $10 and can feed both of us for two meals. Unless I'm extremely hungry. Then the sandwich doesn't go as far...

We stayed at the family home, which the kids refer to as The Stately. We visited with Zola for a while and then headed out. I went to the Gaia's Colours headquarters to help Ursa get ready for the fashion show that was a part of the Victoria Fibre Arts Festival.

We arrived at the Harbour Towers Hotel
to set up and prepare for the fashion show. I was modeling the socks that I made (and I can't find the photo just now, so know that it was the Berry Season sock pattern from the Melissa Morgan Oakes book, 2-at-a-time Socks, in the Dionysus colourway of Gaia's Colour's sport weight yarn. Turns out I was also needed to model several other pieces as well.

There was a sleeveless Aran sweater (yawn), a lovely skirt (what? I know, a knit skirt seems a strange idea but it was pretty cool over the swishy skirt I was already wearing), some shawl/wraps, a hat made of leftover stash, and the socks. We had our hair and makeup done beforehand (and the gal did a nice job, too!) and the models were told the audience would want to fondle us.

Here is where we learned the knitter's handshake. If a knitter comes up to you and caresses your shoulder or whatever else is on you that looks like a handknit garment, and says "oooh, did you knit that yourself?".

Ha.

There was a small window (15 min) where the models had to run out and join the crowd for the buffet dinner (which was dreadful: undercooked pasta, bland sauces, plain meatballs in a tomato sauce. No parmesan, either!) before the fashion show began. Then it was non-stop parading around for an hour and a half. It was kind of fun, actually. Since I was in the parade, I didn't get that many photos.

Here's what I did get. One of the ladies had crocheted a dress for her parents' 25th wedding anniversary in 1972. Of course it didn't fit her anymore, but it did fit Daine, the gal from (Latvia? Lithuania? I can't remember).




Another young woman in her 20s brought a pair of socks given to her by her grandmother, but that were knit by the grandmother's grandmother - 90 years ago! The must have been knit on 1mm needles with eencie weencie yarn because the work was so fine. The initials of the person they were knit for were embroidered on the side in Cyrillic - and came from the Old Country (it was unclear if it was Russia or the Ukraine).

You could tell something yarny was happening because of the van outside.

(Hm. This is where I run into trouble with Blogger. Do I have to submit my photos for a single post all in one go? Having difficulty.)

Well then. The yarny van will have to wait for another post.