Let me begin at the beginning.
And let me begin with saying that I never saw the latest Paul de Leeuw show Pau!l before.
So, on Wednesday afternoon I received a message on Twitter by my friend Marja from Nordic Wool that she needed knitters for Saturday.
For the above mentioned show. To knit Julekuler, Norwegian Christmas balls. You know - Arne and Carlos.
And to set up about 450 of those for the audience.
Joh, I thought, that sounds like absolutely fun and totally crazy. I'm in!
Then I got nervous! What to wear, what to expect, what what aaarrrgghhh!
Thanks to a wonderful friend back in Germany, a camera man and book lover by trade I got some tips and tricks and an "all will be well". Sounds weak, but it really helped.
On Friday I got all the information I needed.
The road to fame is a long one and so I got up on Saturday before crack of dawn, did a shortened version of my usual morning routine (skipped coffee, did the whole bathroom thing, got dressed, had some crackers) and went off to catch the first bus leaving this place.
Three hours later I arrived and was happily greeted by Marja and some fellow knitters!
Got some instructions and sat down to start working. Well, AFTER I got my first coffee of the day, otherwise this whole thing would have been a useless adventure.
Some of the knitters had never cast on on DPNs or knit in the round on DPNs and I briefly interrupted my routine to show how to cast on and how to increase according to the pattern. One of the knitters became my buddy - she would cast on and I would knit. I lost count of how many project I cast on in those three hours before the taping of the show, but it was...plenty. Many plenty. Look at the table behind me - one ball of wool is one project:
Little disasters happened and were solved (where is the box with the white balls???? Nowhere to be found! Oh, we split the existing balls into two - those who don't knit wind balls now!).
Great catering was offered with too little time to eat - with less experienced knitters available we had to hurry up and cast on those 450 projects...
We didn't manage, but we got really close!
All the bags were placed in the studio and then we were let in. Shortly afterwards the audience also came in and quickly after all settled in the taping started!
It was a hoot!
Part of the show is the Kiss Cam - people from the audience could write in projects they want to do with a certain amount of money offered by the show. In order to get this money or at least part of it the camera crew would zoom in on people and they would have to kiss. Paul de Leeuw would then award a certain amount of money to that kiss.
Yes, you guessed it! I had to kiss a fellow knitter - worth 20 Euro ;-)
Almost at the end of the show the part we had prepared and were part of came: Arne and Carlos, my two new knitting heros!
As you know from this blog I have knitted balls before. And I did it again in the audience as part of the show. Paul gave the instructions in his usually comic way and the audience pulled out the bags and examined them. It was hilarious to see some of the faces later on TV, especially of the gentlemen...priceless.
For the rest of the show the middle part of the front row happily knitted away, swayed to the music and increased in pattern.
The taping took about 2 hours.
After that we got to meet Arne and Carlos!
You know what? They are super nice! Really! Chatting, encouraging ("you can do that" - "I know, I will") and very calm.
What a great experience! I'm already looking forward to their new pattern book about DOLLS! I love knitted dolls, I used to have two when I was little, one made by my Mom and one by an aunt. I loved them, soft and cuddly as they were.
I thought I wouldn't cast on any more balls for a while, but guess what?
I have to! Because I have to design this little robot for one of the balls for my husband!
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