Knitting goes to Hollywood..er..Fredericton Exhibition

So this week in our blog we are supposed to mention Twitter!  I have a Twitter account, used it a lot in the beginning, and quickly became baffled at how other people didn't keep up, replay or hashtag as much as I thought they would.  Well, I must admit, I fell off that bandwagon pretty quickly.  I was intrigued, in the know, and at a moment's notice I could find out if there was a change in temperature, traffic jam, a fire, or a special at the Victory Meat Market.  Then, life happened.  I would periodically forget to check up on the minute to minute updates and lose out on whole conversations, I would zip back and forth through the previous tweets in the conversations so I could get the joke or at least the gist of what was going on. 

Frankly, I don't need to know what everyone is thinking or doing all the time.  I am happy being oblivious, or at least not in the know until the news is a little old, like an hour or even a day old!  Let's face it, we are in the information business in the library - I should be jumping on these alerts, but yet, I enjoy the surprise of hearing about a new snow storm coming from a senior patron who is absolutely thrilled that along with his stale joke he gives me new and valuable information.  I love letting other people ask me if I knew that this celebrity did something and the joy they feel at knowing they are the first to tell me.  I get it.  I love it when I am able to help a patron find that obscure piece of information, that special book with the red cover, the newspaper article they searched all over for.  I love it.  Being in the information business doesn't mean I have to know it all immediately, sometimes I like to share the joy of informing people!

Which brings me to my blog's main subject, my love of knitting.  After I learned how to knit and purl left handed no one could stop me!  I learned how to make scarfs, mittens and even knitted toys.  In Brownies when I was 9 we all worked on a knitted gift for a craft badge.  I made a rabbit (why, who knows?!), he was white and pink and had green yarn frayed and stuck at the bottom that was supposed to look like grass.  A sitting bunny with green under him.  Little did I know that my little bunny was put in the Fredericton Exhibition by my guide leader.  If I had Twitter back in those days someone would have told me and I would have already known, but I was blissfully unaware.  Imagine my surprise when all of our Brownie pack got to see the exhibition together.  We got to go to the arts, crafts, vegetable and fruit exhibits.  There were pumpkins larger than we were, beautiful quilts, lovely jams, cooked things and more.  We started looking around the knitted areas and what did we see?  A few familiar projects.  My little bunny rabbit got first place in the novelty children knit section!!!  I was ecstatic!  What a surprise!  Everyone was so happy for me and I felt so proud.  I imagine if I had Twitter it would not have been a surprise and I may not have been so floored at this moment I shared with my fellow Brownies. I still have my ribbon in my childhood photo album along with my Brownie badges.

Although I think Twitter is a great tool and valuable in today's society and I love getting information from other people who follow Twitter,  I just don't want that to be the only way I get information!  I never really did get famous by winning at the Exhibition, but it sure was a moment I will never forget.  Although I think Twitter is amazing in giving up to the minute valuable information about, well, everything,  I do value those dark days without Twitter when a little girl could find out first hand that she was entered and got a ribbon at the Fredericton Exhibition for her love of knitting..