Catching up on film fest knitting

Has it almost been a month since I made my second trip to this year's film festival in Cleveland? Nothing like timeliness in sharing some stories from the experience. Here's what I wrote during my first three days at the festival. Now I pick up from the gaps in my daily blogging from March 22-25. (There was an entry on the 25th, but it was of the "I am dead tired" variety.)

This time around there were more people I knew who were attending the festival, which made it a lot more fun than bumming around on my own and working on fest recaps for the film blog. (On the other hand, I'm still behind on those entries from the second weekend.) I hung out with Kristin, so there was a fair amount of knitting to keep us busy at those times when we didn't want to watch films or were waiting for them to start.

Tower City Center has a dollar store, and that's where she helped find a couple items to meet my knitting needs. Previously I'd been carrying around all of my knitting tools (crochet hook, needles for weaving in ends, scissors, tape measure) loose in my bag. She spotted what probably is used as a pencil case for a binder, but it works just as well for keeping that stuff in one handy place. While it took combing through aisle after aisle, she also found a garment bag that I could use for my first felting project.

When knitting between films (or skipping a session), we took a spot by the fountain. It's about as visible of a place in the whole mall. Kristin was amused to see the reactions as she sat knitting a bib and I worked on my felted needle holder. One woman approached to ask what we were doing. Kristin told her. The next question, directed to her, was, "What is he making?" It was like I wasn't there or a deaf mute. Really, though, it was OK. She's been to enough screenings where the reps, unaware that she is a film critic also, mistake her for my plus-one on a pass. I could be the invisible one this time.

It wasn't all movies and knitting. We met up with two other critics at a happy hour party that was practically our own little event. Apparently the other festival attendees had better things to do than miss a session to drink discounted martinis and eat free appetizers at a ritzy steakhouse. Our colleagues--one is pictured on the right while the other took the photo--were in rare form that night. It carried over into the next screening, something that was very funny and made us very glad that we weren't sitting by them.

My secret was revealed to these two critics at the festival as they walked by while we were knitting one night. I didn't get any needling from them, which was something I thought might happen. After the festival I thanked the one seen above. When I started I thought he might tease me about it, but he complimented me for having the courage to do it.

By the festival's last day energy was at a premium, and it leaves me with one final knitting-related story to tell. As Kristin and I sat by the fountain knitting and her husband was using his PDA, an older gentleman with an eastern European accent came up to me and asked if he could take my picture. I'm not crazy about having my picture taken in the first place, but weakened by days of movies and some sleep deficiency, I consented. Kristin's husband thought he wanted to have his picture taken with me, which would have been really weird, and got up to take it. No, this older guy thought it was unusual to see a man knitting, which was why he wanted to snap a picture and didn't want to be in it. Yes, that was strange.

There you have it...some short tales of how to occupy down time at a film festival and the reactions I provoked from strangers. Knitting during the festival added the relaxation and necessary breaks to what is a good time but an exhausting one as well.