Today was a fabulous day. Spring is definitely in the air and I am counting the minutes until I can ditch the heavy coat for good this season, but today was not one of the days in which the cumbersome garment was required. For this, I am most thankful.
My kids are with The Nonni this weekend, another thing for which I am grateful. They’ve been sort of at each other the last week or so, and I think the change of scenery is probably doing all of us some good. But with the kids away, I got to do something really special this morning.
I belong to this wonderful e-mail listserver called “Knit Talk,” Which was started by Margo Lynn about 5 years ago, as a knee jerk reaction to some unpleasantness that had been taking place on another, much larger, knitting community. I had been experiencing some of that same unhappiness with that group, so as soon as I found out about Knit Talk, I volunteered to help. It’s a wonderful group, definitely about knitting, crochet, and a general love of all things yarn, but it also incorporates life into craft, the way some other, much larger, groups do not.
Not that Knit Talk is small; it isn’t. As of the moment of this writing there are more than 1,600 members. But it feels smaller, and cozier, and lots friendlier, too.
Anyway, so Margo Lynn contacted me about a week or so ago and said she’d be flying into town for the day–yikes! And she wanted to know if I could do breakfast, or dinner, on one end or the other of her trip. She has asked this before and I have declined–sometimes it’s just hard to get away when the kids are around and they’ve got to go here, or there, or whatever. But with them being away this weekend, the opportunity seemed perfect! And it was. We met up with Margo Lynn at the airport this morning and went off to breakfast at a local hotel. I think only in Maryland can you get a gorgeous breakfast plate with miniature blue crab cakes atop your eggs, but man, they were delicious! The liquid centers of the over-easy eggs blended so perfectly with the sweet crab meats and I felt like I was eating something really luxurious.
But the conversation was wonderful, too! Time passed so quickly this morning. Margo Lynn graciously gave me a skein of lovely yarn with yummy blues in it… and I’m already planning the scarf it will be incorporated into. We snapped a quick photo together before we left for the subway station, where Margo Lynn could get into DC and continue on with her day.
I wish I had gotten a good photo of Margo Lynn in that sweater; it’s made with Noro Silk Garden and it is just stunning!
By now Margo Lynn should be home and maybe even in her own bed after a long day and a long journey for some sightseeing! But I am so glad that she included me her plans and that we were finally able to meet.
I then came home, cat-napped for about an hour, shoved down a quick sandwich, and headed out for knit group today. Here’s a gallery of our photos. As always, click on the thumbnails to make with the biggie photos.
We had several new people today, including Julie (see, I remembered!) and Kerry. Welcome to you both! Poor Kerry… the sun was so bright coming in the window that every time I snapped her photo, her eyes were shut. I’ll try to do better next time.
Dina had a new hairdo and lots of progress on her Lady Eleanor stole to show off. Several folks were making socks or other things out of sock yarn, and Yvonne was making a stunning shawl out of interlocking circles with her Jojoland yarn. She was also working on a complex design with double knitting, and it was stunning! I wish I had gotten a photo but she put it away before I could.
Rhoda’s sugar cane scarf, which she cast on at group two weeks ago, was nearly complete, and it is gorgeous! And Tammy had a nearly completed sweater with bobbles and cables that was a real knockout. But then, everything Tammy knits is gorgeous.
As for me, I got less than one half of one row of my February Lady Sweater done today. I lost my place somehow on a lace pattern row (it’s an easy pattern to “read” and remember, so not sure how that happened), and when I tried to un-knit back to the place before I messed up, I started dropping stitches all over the place. At one point this afternoon I honestly thought I was going to cry. But then, I realized it was a beautiful afternoon and I was among friends, so I took a few deep breaths and eventually got it fixed. Phew.
After knit group I took the opportunity to try a new Mexican place in town with my husband. We love Mexican, and used to go to this hole in the wall place in town that has been long closed. There’s not much good Mexican around here that isn’t some chain restaurant serving something they’re trying to pass as Mexican. So we were excited to try this place. It wasn’t crowded, and wasn’t cozy, but the food was quite good and we’ll definitely go back. Not our same old place that we really miss, but not bad, either.
It was a good day.
. It’s like having the website in a book, only there’s more. More variations, more increases and decreases, and patterns. Lots of patterns. I can hardly decide what to knit first. 
