Yarn Crawl And A Visit With Franklin Habit

What a DAY!!!! After a fast drive to Huntsville (because time can't HELP but fly by when you have 5 women in a car!).....we arrived at Yarn Expressions!!

Denise and I were accepted for the 1,000 Knitters Photo Shoot!!! Alabama was the last stop for final pictures!! I can't tell you how excited and NERVOUS I was about this!!! What if Franklin turned out to be not at ALL like his blog? What if he was one of those folks that was only personable in his writing and drawing???

Ohhhh......I should have known better!!! What an INCREDIBLY nice, funny, personable, SO at ease with his surroundings kind of guy!!!

When it was my turn for the shoot, he sits me down, looks straight at me, smiles big and tells me not to be nervous....to pretend we were at my house sitting around knitting....then proceeds to ask questions about my knitting and chatting about his knitting, etc.....and COMPLETELY and TOTALLY putting me at ease all while clicking away with his camera!!! (and I am so very self conscience.....I do NOT like to be the center of attention AT ALL).....just ask Cindy . I am down right annoying about it.

This was one of those situations where you have contact with someone for only a few minutes and immediately feel like they are your friend!!! It is a true gift that he has!!!

We had been notified that Franklin was bringing the first box of his book "It Itches" so we had the double excitement of being the first few to receive an autographed book!!!

Denise and Suzanne knitting away.....

Did someone say Sparkle Monkey??

Jessi knitting.....(with her "guess what I'm up to" smile).....

Holly, the picture of innocence......

(which she has down to a FINE ART)! Waa Haa Haa!!!

AND......the "Star" himself!!!!

In between some shots, Franklin would stick his head around the screen and chat with us!! He even asked if we would hang around until he was finished so he could have someone make a shot of US with HIM!!!!! (SQUEE!!!)

Franklin didn't just scrawl his name on a book like some authors do....he chatted with each and every one of us, making eye contact and never rushed a single person!!! What a GUY!!!!!

I hate that the time was so short....only a few hours! If we had been better prepared we would have come up with a plan to kidnap him and bring him back to Trussville......if we could have only gotten to Delores first, with a promise of a wee bit of alcohol and a carton of Pall Mall cigs I'm betting we could have pulled it off!!! LOL!!!!

AND.....this wasn't the cheapest gas in the area!!!!

Last but not least, flowers from my sweetie!!!!

AWESOME day, great gal pals.......just couldn't have asked for anything more......well.....except for that whole bringing Franklin back to Trussvegas thing!! LOL!!!!