This past weekend I attended ACL.  I’ve been to every ACL since 2008 (with the exception of 2009 and 2013), but this was my very first time attending with a 3-day pass.  My ACL game has mellowed since the first time I attended at 24.  That year my brother and I camped out for seven (!) hours so we could be up close for the headlining Foo Fighters show.  We were crammed up against strangers and there was no concept of personal space.  Any bathroom break required wading back through swaths of people to find my spot again.  But it was more than worth it since it was a life-changing show (which sounds overly dramatic but it’s true), and I feel like I have been chasing that concert high ever since.

I’m kind of a Foo Fighters geek so I’m going to try and keep the dorkiness at a respectable level for this post.  But seriously.  Check it out for yourself. At about 3:45 minutes in, where we all start jumping up and down like crazy…this is one of my favorite memories.  And we were in like the fourth row!  BEST. SHOW. EVER.

But now, at the ripe old age of 32?  No.  I will not camp out for seven hours.  We brought CHAIRS ya’ll.  And it was marvelous.  We saw some really great shows!  My favorite was Haim.  I was so obsessed with their debut album so it was a real treat to finally be able to see them live.  Radiohead, Cage the Elephant, Jack Garratt, and Chris Stapleton also put on great shows.

Since we were taking a more relaxed approach this year (with said chairs), I decided…why not bring some crafts with me?  In the weeks leading up to ACL, I had been really excited about the shows but a little bummed that I wouldn’t have as much crafting time.  Once I decided to bring some crafty goodies with me, I felt a lot better.

What to bring?  I figured crochet would be the safest craft to bring.  I didn’t want to risk taking needlepoint in and getting my needles taken away (though, spoiler alert, I probably could have slipped all my sharp objects from my craft table into my bag, given how lax security was).  So I stashed my handy festival bag with a crochet hook and yarn, and I was ready to go.

It’s always a little scary to go against the grain.  Nobody else had yarn or a crochet hook.  But I decided to go for it.  My self-consciousness ebbed away as I relaxed and listened to good music while crafting.  One woman approached me saying that she had always wanted to learn crochet but wasn’t very good at it.  I told her I wasn’t either.  But that doesn’t stop me!

I worked on the Little Box of Crochet June box and made a lot of progress.

I also worked on the shawl from my last post.

I’m really glad I decided to take my projects with me to ACL.  Sometimes dealing with the crowds can be a little stressful, so it was nice to unwind and listen to relaxing music while working on projects that I enjoy.