Meeting people in yarn stores

I seem to have an ability to attract new knitters.  Maybe it's the yarn fumes coming off my clothes.  Maybe it's my hair color.  Maybe it's the way I am usually holding multiple hanks of yarn while I make up my mind.  Or maybe my aura reaches out and grabs them (there is a precedent: many years ago at a mall in Philadelphia my "aura" reached out and grabbed a passing psychic: she told me it had done so and she had something she had to share with me...I apologized and told her I thought it was better trained than that). 

Anyway, I am often minding my own business, trying to pick up inexpensive yarn for a quick washable project and they will come.  The conversation always begins with one of two phrases.  The one I don't care for is "you look like you knit a lot" (unless I'm wearing a home made item). The other is "are you a knitter?"

Of course I answer yet, and then the conversation begins.  Today a lovely woman at a store wanted my advice on needles and yarn for a baby project and whether the store's beginner classes were any good.  We had a lovely chat.  I hope she gets hooked and that I run into her again, so she can show me what she made for her niece or nephew.  There is something magical about the first piece of knitting, even if it is a little off square or the tension isn't as consistent as it will be in a few months.  It means someone liked the craft enough (or loved the recipient enough) to keep at it until it's done.  

When someone "gets" homemade it's a beautiful thing

One of my co-workers mentioned in passing that his wife was due, almost immediately, with their first child.  I love making baby things for co-workers, but this was cutting it a bit fine.  So I thought it through, went to one of the largest yarn stores in the US and picked up some Lorna's Lace sock yarn in a berry color way.   I whipped out my crochet hooks, figured that a size E was closest to the right size and began designing my own sweater.    I started on a yoked cardigan with raglan sleeves and determined that I really wasn't loving the pooling.  So I dragged my color expert (also known as my sister) to another Local Yarn shop and we poured over the yarns.  I finally found a cantaloupe color that picked up one of the shades in the variegated.  One of the store clerks found the perfect buttons and 4 days later it was done. 

 I gave it to my co-worker on Friday.  He's a guy.  I figured he'd say thanks, but his wife might like it.  15 minutes later he was at my desk, hugging me, asking about the sweater, thanking me.  I had to smile. 

I really had to smile at lunch time.  Just about everyone in the office told me how much Ben (not his real name) had loved the sweater, how he'd shown it to everyone, and how he couldn't understand why I felt I had to explain it was crocheted and not knitted (I was explaining the texture.

I've made dozens of crocheted baby sweaters.   I've largely designed them all myself.  Three times stand out.  The time the pregnant woman on the train cried (she'd lost her grandmother and was not expecting a hand made sweater),  The co-worker whose wife was expecting twins.  He thanked me nicely, then came in the following Monday with roses from his wife, because she didn't think he thanked me enough ("do you know what hand made sweaters like these would cost at Filene's) and this time.  I loved giving a gift to someone who appreciated the work that went into it. 

His daughter will be blessed.  He really will love the plaster casts of her hand, the clay pots and the refrigerator art.  And he made my day.