Knitting in Public

New camera! A Sony something or another with an outstanding macro lens feature. Look at that detail! (Sock yarn from my LYS). I went a little happy crazy yesterday, wondering around my yard taking extreme close-up photos of my flowers.

Here is a photo of my handspun merino-bombyx silk (fiber by Misty Mountain Farms, I think).

One of the best reasons I can think of for taking extreme close-ups? It makes my yard/neighborhood look nicer. All you see is a pretty flower in front of a pretty wood fence. You don't see the overgrown weed patch that is my front lawn, or the sidewalks with the big pits in it from all the snow and rain. Or the derelict Ford Mustang with four flat tires in the parking lot. Look! Pretty flower!

Today, the kitten Petunia had her first vet visit. Petunia is the runt of a litter of five kittens a stray cat thoughtfully birthed on my front porch back in April. Petunia tested negative for the big stuff (FHIV, F. Leukemia) but is underweight. While I waited for the overbooked vet, I knitted on this:

This is will be an Entrelac baby blanket, no pattern, yarn by Vanna White (I know, it's acrylic, but it's easy to take care of and can be repeatedly vomited on with no worries). I had about a 30 minute wait in the waiting room, and a mother asked if her daughter could watch me knit. The daughter, who looked about 9, was a new knitter. I answered a few questions and then they moved on. I haven't had too many knitting-in-public freakouts, but I've read stories from other knitters where people act as if they're using an abacus, or scratching on a slate with a lump of charcoal. Sometimes I am mildly concerned people might think I'm weird for knitting when I could be playing an electronic game or fiddling with a complicated cell phone.

The vet had given me a free sample bag of kitty chow, and I'd opened it and given the kitten a snack (since she's so underweight). I thought it would be funny to hold the open bag out to the man sitting next to me and offer him some: "Kitty chow?" He thanked me gravely and declined.

I'm sure no one will think me odd for knitting in public.