Sunday, October 12, 2008

Knitting with Rock Stars or Mason Dixon Does Nashville

Oh yes, that is my cousin and I cozying up to the wonderful knitters, Ann Shayne(on left) and Kay Gardiner(on right), the writers of Mason-Dixon Knitting. My beloved cuz and I took a road trip to Nashville with the express purpose of meeting these ladies. We both agreed that before Cuz spawns her newest project, baby Deuce, we should do something fun together. We decide, Nashville here we come. Tennessee does this wonderful thing once a year called the Southern Festival of Books. Over 250 authors went to downtown Nashville for a weekend to schill their books and see their fans. It was awesome. Books were everywhere, people selling books, giving away books, talking about books, and signing books.


These lovely ladies from Mason-Dixon filled a court room full of knitters and their families to talk about their newest book, Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines. They passed around knitted items from the book and engaged all of us in the story of how knitting led them into the odyssey that became http://www.masondixonknitting.com/ . They made me laugh and feel good about my own knitting adventure. I had the added bonus of meeting knitters from all over the state of Tennessee, we talked yarn, projects, and techniques. We were instant friends ready to just sit and knit together as we got to know one another. Above is the talented Tara (on left) and Lindsey (on right) who had projects that made me lust after their skill. Tara particularly touched my heart when she told me she taught herself to knit during a time in her life when she was very unhappy. I thought, I know that story. Everyone was so welcoming.
Ann and Kay were so approachable and excited to meet the twoseme who drove from St Louis to meet them (See: http://www.masondixonknitting.com/archives/2008_10.html#002517 for proof, Tempesttea in her 15 minutes of knitting fame). Kay especially made me feel less like the neophyte knitter and one of the crowd when we both pulled out our knitting and found stitches had jumped right off our needles and we had to quickly save our respective projects. I also really liked that Kay wore my favorite color and was knitting something in the same beautiful shade.
It was just wonderful, this was just the medicine I needed for my soul this weekend. Thank you to all the wonderful Tennessee knitters who opened their knitting bags and hearts to the chubby girls from St Louis.


2 comments:

Rachel said...

So cool!

Tara said...

It was so wonderful to meet you, and you are so sweet to mention me on your blog! I hope you'll come back to Nashvegas soon to see what else the city has to offer. We have a knitting group at the public library downtown on the 2nd Monday of every month, and Ann is usually in attendance.

Hope to see you again soon sometime!