I’ve been home for twenty-four hours and I’m still glowing from my Knitty Gritty trip to SoCal. Pardon the hyperbole, but I could never have imagined it would be so freakin’ great! Speaking of great, superwoman, working mom, and gracious host Vickie Howell not only shot two shows over a twelve-hour work day, she found time to write it up on her blog (with a lovely prom photo of us!).

But, let’s start with Sonya, pictured here. I couldn’t choose just one adjective to describe her. Our emails and phone calls as we arranged for me to be on the show were pleasant enough, but meeting her in person exceeded all expectations. She made me feel like a star, when it’s really her and and Vickie and the crew who deserve the spotlight. Thank you, Sonya for welcoming, rehearsing, cheerleading, writing, encouraging, smiling, laughing, and making it all happen!

And a huge round of applause and buckets of gratitude to (pardon the misspellings) Calsie, Kenyetta, Andri, Dave, Joy, Alexandra (wardrobe?), Jim (sound?), Suzy, Stephanie, Kelly, Gordon. I never caught the names of the three cameramen, the lighting guy or the other fellows wandering around, but they were lovely!

I was nervous, fearing I’d talk to too quickly, forget a “golden nugget” of knitting wisdom, or knit less-than gracefully. I was a little tired, too. I also stayed up to 1:30 the night before rushing to knit up my last step-out.

Originally, I had done a detail of the bag, but because it was the last step-out before the “hero” finished project, it was confusing to just have two inches of knitting. It would look better as an almost finished bag or twenty inches. I spent over an hour before cameras rolled grafting my newly-knit bottom of the bag to the detail. Despite the stress, the shoot went flawlessly and we were done long before lunch! Not bad for Day 2 of the shooting, eh?

Other highlights include the fabulous Knitsters who spent their morning knitting up my project. Although they had never met, they got along famously and I wish I got to sit back with them on that uncomfortable couch and knit with them! Thank you, David, Kristen and Aaron—I want to see your finished bags!

I got to meet some other guests, including Art Yarns’ Iris Schreier (who was the only show shot on Day 1), John Brinegar of Yarn Ball Boogie (who shot after me). During lunch, who should arrive (and dine in the parking lot with us) but Ms. Amy Singer, who we all know and love from Knitty.com! She taped this morning, another one of Sonya’s charges.

But, the biggest surprise of my time there was the short, bald man with a really big lens who wandered in while I was rehearsing. I asked Sonya if I could stop to go say hello to him, as I recognized him immediately. I mentioned him yesterday as John’s imported (from Chicago) entourage, but you’ll have to go to my flickr page to see him named. I don’t want to contribute to any knitting blogger gossip/drama/scandal, but he flew out to meet John for the first time in person!

We cackled and giggled together while John was rehearsing and shooting. He’s a sweetheart who I’ve admired from afar and, after only a few short hours, would consider it an honor to be his friend. Color me touched that he gave me his email address with a little drawing of his fluffy friend.

Our recent comments on each others’ blogs prove that you shouldn’t lurk. Be brave and write people if you like what you read! Speaking of which, I’ll email you back, Stephanie (you were much more productive in your non-NaNoWriMo-ness than me), Scout (I Sonya big time!) and J.P. (She’s terribly fun, professional and a-freakin-dorable… and she has great red suade platform heels).

It’s late now. To quote the show, “Knit on!” Nighty-night.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 11:29 pm and is filed under designing, knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.