There was a giant size pair of knitting needles

on the table yesterday - in Handicrafts. 
Yes, I was back at the showgrounds and on duty as a steward again.
S..., our visiting Canadian judge, had left them there. They were a gift to A..., one of the convenors. 
S...had started a scarf using "only nine strands this time" of yarn. She simply put nine different yarns together and began knitting with the giant needles. 
And people were fascinated. Long after she had left to catch her plane people were coming along and looking... and trying.
Yes, you might think it is easy to knit with those big needles. It isn't. It isn't as fast as you might think either. But...fun? Yes. There were smiles and laughter and comments like, "How do you hold these things?" (The answer to that is to hold one firmly under your arm.)
People looked at how the disparate colours came together and discovered that you do need to slip the first stitch on the row or it disintegrates into a mess. 
I had to undo it several times so that the mess made by the failure to slip the first stitch could be undone. I had to undo it so that the loose threads, left by people who found holding all the strands too much of a challenge. A... sorted out the untidiness more than once too. 
     "You can't!" someone told me. I showed him the two scarves left by S.... He shook his head and waited for his partner to finish a nine stitch row.
There was the Chinese woman. She spoke no English. Her husband only had a word or two. I offered the needles with a gesture. Her husband gave me a thumbs up. The woman picked the needles up and knitted a perfect row. Her movements were elegant, like those of a dancer. When she had finished she passed the knitting back to me with a slight bow. I gave her a thumbs up. She smiled and did the same.
We will pull the "knitting" apart at the end of the show because it  just happens to be my yarn. I was intending to use it for another purpose and I will need some of the strands in it for that purpose.
But, I can keep the memory of  the way people tried, of how they were fascinated by something so simple and yet so challenging.