Sunday--The last day

The alarm went off. Tigger moaned quietly: “I think I’m getting sick.”

We had to get going early for a vendor meeting, so instead of eating at our good little breakfast diner, we did the drive-through at McDonald’s.

After the meeting (which was no more exciting than most meetings), it was time to open the booth. We were there from 10 to 4, and we were once again busy, which was a surprise for the last day. We seemed to have more families go by. It was a day of sweetness and charm. Cynthia became good friends with an adorable little girl who had just learned to knit; and she is hoping that the girl, whoever she is, keeps knitting and comes to Baltimore next year to say hello. There are some kids who just get to you.

We saw a little boy walking along, staring at the amazingly high ceiling. We had a man buy a Kimono kit for his 87-year-old mother to give her something fun to knit.

We sold a felted-hat kit to a woman whose eyes sparkled as we held a mirror up for her and she saw how beautiful she looked. (Ingredients for hat, pictured below: 2 skeins Manos wool, one skein Wool in the Woods boucle, Fiber Trends hat pattern AC-01, make the one that's red in the picture.)

By the end of the last day of any show, vendors are tired. They just want to go home. It is always a struggle for the show management to keep them from packing up early, but XRX did a good job of this: The rule was, Pack up early, don't come back. We all like being there.

Deep down, we really didn’t want to pack up anyway. It is a lot of work to pack. When Knitter's Magazine editor Rick Mondragon walked by, Cynthia dramatically fell to the floor of the booth and told him that she refused to leave.

But at 4:00, it was time. Out came the plastic bags, the boxes, the hammers to tear it all down. The air conditioning went off. Within an hour and a half, we were sweating and ready to load the van. We had to wait our turn, and by the time all was said and done, it was 6:30.

We began the drive home, stopping for Burger King at a rest stop. Kim was indeed suffering a full-blown cold. Cynthia was simply tired since she was driving. The drive got longer and longer and longer.

The conversation deteriorated to the point where we traded cat songs because that’s just about all there was left to talk about. You know—cat songs. All cat owners have them. They’re those little private songs that we sing to our cats:

Kim’s Cat Song for her two Cats, Callie and Max

Kitty cat friends who live in my house,
Kitty cat friends who live with me.

Kitty cat friends who live in my house,
Kitty cat friends who live with me.

Cynthia’s Cat Song for her 18-year-old cat, Gizzy

Gizzy Gizzy Gumdrop,
He’s our Gummy Cat.
He’s our Gizzy Gumdrop,
He’s such a Gummy Cat.

He’s our little Gizzy Gummy cat.

Chorus (optional) (spoken):
He’s a Gummy cat!
Thank of that!

He’s our little Gizzy Gummy cat.

Cynthia’s cat song for her cat that passed away two years ago

Buckley boo, Buckley boo,
We love you.

We drove and we drove and we drove. We called the Kevins ahead of time, and both were there to help unload. The store was pristine when we arrived; our Saturday helper, Kirsten, had cleaned it from end to end. It was the best it has ever looked. So we dumped bags and bags of yarn in all the cleanest spots. There was no way we had the energy to put it back. Even with just dumping it down, we were home at 1:00 a.m.

Alas, Stitches was over for the year.

Except for all the yarn that had to be put away.

And taken out again two weeks later for Knitters' Day Out.