My Big Fat Calgary Weekend

Unsurprisingly, it’s taken a full week to recover from the whirlwind that was my latest trip to Calgary enough to write about it.

Knit City Calgary (KCC) is a biennial fibre arts festival hosted by Knit Social on September 25-27, alternating years with Calgary and Vancouver in Western Canada, and Toronto and Montreal to the east. This is only the second-ever Knit City event in Calgary.

I was originally on the fence about going down for KCC this year. A recent spate of near-monthly road trips to Calgary left me feeling burnt out on the city. The soul-crushingly boring drive down the QEII, the endless traffic and construction downtown where KCC would be held, the deja vu-esque monotony after so many trips back and forth. I made my peace with the idea of not going, prepared to wait until next year and fly out for Vancouver or Montreal instead.

But then Irina, my best friend of more than two decades, invited me to her baby shower that very same weekend. The universe was sending me a message: Why not both?

The weekend quickly filled up from there. Friday night, shortly after my arrival at my parents’ house, I was off on the road again for The Yarn Rebels’ kickoff event at Trolley 5 on 17th Ave, for which Krystal asked me to take photos. It was fun putting my “journalist hat” on again, though I quickly gave up on futzing with Krystal’s Canon and switched to my phone. If phone cameras were good enough for my photojournalism instructors ten years ago, they’re definitely good enough for me now, I figured.

The theme for the evening was “Denim and Diamonds,” wherein the 40 fibre friends who gathered in the basement event space of the brewery all came wearing denim, with their ‘diamond’ being their favourite knit. I chose to wear my hoodie-fied Stowaway Sweater, my magnum opus — I sadly didn’t win any of the fashion show prizes, but it was stiff competition!

Chantal Miyagishima, better known by her knitwear design moniker Knitatude, was the guest of honour. A Calgary local, Chantal has amassed quite a following for her beginner-friendly designs and wardrobe staples. She was there to sign copies of her book, Sweater Success — part pattern collection, part how-to guide to adjust patterns to better fit your own body. I’ve been a fan of Chantal’s work for years. Her Easy Eyelet Yoke Lite was the first garment I ever successfully knitted for myself. It was so lovely to meet her and know that she’s just as affable, delightfully sarcastic, and generally lovely as she is online!

Yarn Rebel events are always a good time, even when I’m “working.” Flitting around making friends, reuniting with familiar faces like Catherine of Creation Miss Couture — the sweet, nerdy francophone indie dyer who is particularly hyper-local to me; and Shu-Wen — a pharmacist from Red Deer who makes the pilgrimage for Yarn Rebels shenanigans on either end of the highway. Shu-Wen is a beast with a crochet hook, and if I ever get brave enough to try Tunisian crochet, it’ll be her fault. She also made an obscenely generous array of tiny skein stitch markers as gifts for us all, which could also be worn as earrings.

Saturday was my “shopping day” at Knit City. After breakfast and hanging out with my parents for a bit, I made the drive downtown. Like last time, I came to KCC with a rough wishlist of things I wanted to look for and vendors I wanted to visit.

Particularly, I was eyeing a returning vendor from the previous KCC — Holistic Needlecraft — whose gorgeous jackets, made with upcycled kantha quilts from Bangladesh, have been rolling around in my head for the better part of two years. I made a beeline for her booth at the back of the Telus Convention Centre, and pounced on this gorgeous reversible number with vibrant purple on one side, and a muted but no less striking orange and blue motif on the other.

My jewel-toned hair seemed to be the inspiration for most of my purchases that day. I was admiring a skein of variegated yarn at Dragon Strings’ booth when the dyer, Annika, swooped in and pointed to an adjacent purpley-blue skein, saying “this would go with your hair,” like some kind of fibre-based siren.

Can’t argue with that.

So I bought two skeins each of Gassy Galaxy and Ambient Dragon, and a notions tin with “Things My Cat is Going to Steal” engraved on it, because Seabreeze will take off with any knitting supplies that aren’t nailed down (and if they were, she’d probably steal the nails too).

Gingersnap is a staple in the Alberta indie-dyer scene, and it’s becoming more of a family affair every time I see their booth at a market. Two of their grandchildren had their own little side table with yarn they dyed themselves. They were proudly showing off who dyed what, and I bought a bundle of mini skeins that they collaborated on.

My yarn purchases complete, I visited Chaotic Fibres for some gorgeous fibre braids for spinning, and Northern Crow Creations for glass-blown buttons and stitch markers. I couldn’t decide what I wanted from Sleepy Sheep Workshop’s collection of laser-cut notions, so I took advantage of the vending machine at their booth and got a cat-shaped progress keeper.

All these (and a KCC tote bag) in hand, I hung out in the lounge for a bit. Ran into a few folks from the previous night’s party, and was hoping to see Krystal and the gang but we missed each other like ships passing in the night. I was all done by lunchtime, and headed back to my parents’ house to decompress and watch Toy Story 5 with them.

But the weekend wasn’t over yet!

Sunday was the fated baby shower. My finished baby knits had been safely stowed for months, waiting for this day, and I was so excited to give these to Irina and Brett. My dear friend is a big fan of the ’60s, so it felt especially apropos to make Elizabeth Zimmerman’s iconic 1968 Baby Surprise Jacket for my future niece.

The Baby Surprise Jacket comes with an online tool that adjusts the pattern based on your own personal gauge and yarn, rather than the other way around as is typical for most knitting patterns, so it was already demonstrating a level of innovation I hadn’t yet seen. It’s worked flat in a series of short rows and sharp turns until you get this weird flappy square, but then you fold it just so into a jacket shape! It was a fascinating project.

When I learned Irina was having a baby girl, I wanted to make something cute and girly to go along with the gender-neutral jacket I’d already finished. I wanted some kind of grow-with-me pattern, and the Rasmilla dress by Sanne Bjerregaard is an adorable piece with eyelets and deep arm holes that (allegedly) make it so the garment will fit longer.

I am so glad that Irina wanted a spoiler for the last unfinished baby project, because that means my personal embargo has been fully lifted. For the last several months, I’ve been working on a temperature blanket, using Jana Pihota’s Excavation Blanket pattern as the template. Each garter ridge represents the high and low temperature in Calgary for every day of her pregnancy. Obviously, the blanket can’t be finished until the little lady makes her debut, but I am making good progress on it!

That afternoon, I hit the road back to Leduc with my heart (and trunk) full, and my brain empty; ready to return to my quiet corner of the world, but grateful for good reasons to venture out of it.