Thursday was the first day of Stitches. Setup lasted from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m, and then the market opened at 7:00.

First thing in the morning, Rick Mondragon, the editor of Knitter's Magazine, announced over the loudspeaker that the vendors who turned in their fashion show garments first would have the best outfits to go with the garments. Our garment was not finished being knitted, and so we immediately resigned ourselves to having the ugliest outfit.

But we did have the booth set up by about 1:00 p.m. We were happy with how it looked:


Our mascots, Franco the Flamingo and Hedgie the Hedgehog seemed happy:


(Their tags explain what pattern was used to knit them.) It would have been logical at this point to go back to the hotel and finish knitting the garment. But we had worked on it hard the night before, and it was almost done. We decided that the aquarium would be a little more fun. Besides, our hands were still sore from knitting from the day before. We needed the break--right? We saw all kinds of cool creatures, including puffins:

And a croc, who sat with his mouth open for a long, long time:


Don't worry, the puffin was in another tank.

Around 4:00, we decided we'd better get back and work on the garment, since it was due in at 7:00.

Cynthia and Mare each had been working on half of it:

And at 6:30, it was finished. Cynthia was relieved:

(Okay, we know it was kind of silly to be that dramatic about finishing something that we could have done instead of going to an aquarium. ) We delivered it at 6:43. The XRX staff knew who we were because there was no one else who had not dropped off their garments. We do not have tickets to the fashion show, so fortunately, we will not witness just how ugly the outfit is.