Knit in Public Day Recap

Oh hey, Laura, Allyson & Stefanie!

I’ve never met a Worldwide Knit in Public Day I didn’t like. For one, it affords me lots of opportunities to take fun pictures of my favorite thing, knitting. (See last year’s recap for more knit pics.) For another, it’s a great excuse to hang out with friends for an extended group session, and – added bonus – WWKIP meetups are usually outdoors. Here’s a run-down of the action at Saturday’s Chicago meetup on Worldwide Knit in Public Day.

We set up our knitting area on the lawn near the Boathouse in Humboldt Park, Chicago. I happen to be the kind of weirdo who has two 5-foot-long braids of yarn literally laying around the house, so I brought them in case anyone wanted to yarn bomb anything. They proved to be a great tool for flagging our area for people as they arrived!

The yarn braids also proved to be of infinite fascination to baby Ira, the youngest attendee at our Knit in Public Day hangout. He particularly enjoyed pointing at them and for sure approved of their use as a baby wig.

For a hot second when I grabbed my camera, Ira thought he needed to try my knitting so he could do the same thing all the grown-ups were up to. At under 18 months, I think he’s got some fine motor skills yet to develop before he can master needlecrafts…

We had about 12 people coming and going throughout our 5 hour public knitting session, and it was really, really fun. Lily, a favorite crafty friend of mine and longtime reader of Hands Occupied rolled up on the sweet bike she’s part way through yarn bombing. How amazing does this look?! She’s also working on a crochet hookworm (tapeworm?) for a friend who, uh, got one on a recent trip. I’m basically obsessed with her creative spirit!

One of the amazing things about WWKIP Day combined with the wide adoption of Instagram among the knitting and fiber community is that you can scan through recent pictures and the #wwkip hashtag to see what other people are up to. I’d been following Chicago knitting designer Sarah Burghardt on Instagram for awhile, and my jaw dropped when I saw a snap of her knitting in the same park we were knitting in. Obviously, I commented, inviting her to come hang out with our crew. She did, and she’s so cool! We may have hatched some plans for combining knitting and cocktails in the near future. :)

Like I said, I never attended a Knit in Public Day event I didn’t like, and my own event was no exception, thanks to the fine folks who stopped by to hang out. A handful of ladies from my regular knitting group, other blog readers, and friends all stopped by. It was so much fun! I’m definitely organizing another WWKIP meetup next year.