The Internet is an amazing thing.  It has its odder corners, and as the Peter Steiner cartoon in the New Yorker  put it, “On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog”, so deceptions can occur.  But connections with real people do happen, and sometimes you have the treat of meeting in person.

Cathy of Hither and Yarn was in town, on her way to Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sock Camp, on Orcas Isand, and we arranged to get together for some serious eating, sightseeing, and chatting.  No yarn shopping, because she’d been on  yarn crawl the day before with other sock campers. Greg and I picked her up at her hotel and took her to Top Gun for dim sum, which was fabulous — the best I’ve had in Seattle. Then, on to Bellevue Botanical Garden for some fresh air, scattered sunshine, and flowers.

Here we are on the path below the perennial border.  Cathy is on the left, and note the Ravelry scarf peeking out from under her jacket.

The trilliums were blooming in the woods.  Cathy said they also grow in Wisconsin, where she is from, but she usually doesn’t get into the woods in the spring, so it was nice to see them here.

We drove into Seattle for a quick peek at the cherry blossoms on the UW campus (a little past their prime, but still nice), then on Pike Place Market browsing and stocking up on used paperbacks for her spare-time reading at Sock Camp, with a stop for coffee and pastries.  A stroll down to the waterfront was next, but it started raining, so we didn’t make it to the Olympic Sculpture Garden.  As Cathy had knitting homework to complete, we headed back down to her hotel.

Knitting homework? Yes, apparently Sock Camp assigns a task to be completed before you arrive.  You would think it would be socks, but no, it’s  . . .

What is it exactly?

The assignment was “Make a toilet paper cover”.  Cathy knitted and felted the black structure, and was then knitting a lacy outer layer — I think the assignment rules called for using

 

 

scrap yarns, so an assortment awaited their fate. I especially  liked the

socks on the feet of the base.

That yarn crawl I mentioned —  Cathy had bought rather a lot of yarn and asked if I could ship it back to her, so she wouldn’t have to buy another suitcase, pay excess baggage fees, etc.  So I got to take it home and fondle it discretely.  That lady can shop!  Kauni, Socks That Rock, Mountain Colors, Panda Silk  . . . and she trusted me to mail it all to her! 

Yeah, rather a lot of yarn.

She also gifted me with a rather sumptuous bag o’goodies:

 

Some handmade soap, a KnitPicks View Sizer, and a skein of the much-sought-after, impossible-to-get Wollmeise Yarn, in the Drachenblut colorway. Wow!  Thank you, Cathy!  One of your packages has a couple of  extras in it that I hope you like half as much as I do these goodies.

Please note the cloth sack that everything came in.  It’s a Wrapsack, yet another Internet thing.  It has a unique number on the tag, and I’ve logged it in on their website. When another person receives it, they can log it in, and its journey from person to person can be followed if you have its number.  I’m giving it to the next blog reader who buys something at my Etsy shop – just put “Wrapsack” in the “comments to seller” box, and it’s yours.