A Big Surprise at Knit Group Today!

It was really cold today. So cold, in fact, that I actually considered for a moment staying home and napping instead of going to knit group today. (Please don’t tell my family that I am so easily swayed… they’ll order cold weather every time.) Everyone was slow getting out the door, me included, but out we did go, into the wind. The cold wind. (Can you tell I hate cold?)

Boy I am glad I decided to go! By the time I got there, there was a long row of tables already set up, and it was already mostly full. I couldn’t believe it! Was I that late?

I sat down next to two newbies, Cathy and Susan? It was their first time joining us, and they were trying their hand at the Knit Picks tote bag kit. I own this kit myself but have not started it yet. And then I looked over and who should I see?

JENNIFER!!

Jennifer is someone I met through Ravelry, I think the first time was in a thread on the boards about blindness and accessibility of websites. Yes, we talk about just about everything on Ravelry. (She’s jinniver, a prolific Raveler whose post count would take me another 10 years to match). I’m lucky to have her as a regular reader of this blog, and she frequently comments when I post, which truly is the juice that keeps me going. (To think that for years this blog was actually a static website, and I never did receive the added energy from getting comments. Nowadays, I could not imagine that!)

Jen and her husband recently moved to Virginia from Texas and so of course I said to her once that since she was in the area, she’d have to come check out our group sometime. Now, she’s about an hour away, and I never really thought she’d actually ever come. In fact, she came today without telling me, so that I’d be surprised. (To further the surprise, she threw me off by commenting on my blog at nearly midnight last night and didn’t mention that she’d be coming…) Wow! What a treat for me! And I immediately discovered that Jennifer is not shy and she just jumped right into our group as if she’d been coming all along. How cool is that?

But of course, Jennifer wasn’t the only person at group today. In fact, we were rather crowded for such a cold, blustery day. Here’s a gallery of photos from today’s Knit Group. As usual, click to embiggen:

I wish I could say I got a photo of everyone, or that I even remembered everyone’s name today. Sadly, I am remiss on both. But the photos above give the flavor of the many activities of the group and show, I think, how our group just “clicks” and people help each other. A lot. It’s one of the coolest things about our group. Today there were people paired off winding yarn, helping with knit fixes, teaching new techniques, and mulling over patterns yet to be cast on. It’s the kind of thing I was hoping for when starting a knit group. People coming together over yarn and coffee, and getting energy and inspiration from each other. It’s great!

Time to leave came too soon for me, as usual. But, I’m glad that starting in 2010, we are now having regular meetings twice a month instead of only once. I know I won’t be able to make every meeting, but knowing that they’ll be there again in two weeks? Awesome. I already can’t wait.

Falling Behind Again

Hi again! Did you miss me? Tell you what… don’t answer that and I won’t hold it against you for what you’re thinking. I think it’s official now that I am becoming a blog slacker.

The reality is that this is a knitting blog, and there just hasn’t been a lot of the knitting going on around here. I’ve had a couple of really big projects at work and between the stress of it and trying to get it done I’ve often been working very late and only getting about three hours of sleep at night. So, in the evenings during what would be prime knitting time and blogging time, I’ve been sitting like a zombie in front of the computer and playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. Then when I get up my second wind I work for a bit until I can see no longer out of my bleary eyes and then it’s off to bed. 5:45 a.m. comes awfully early under those conditions. Just to give you an idea of how late I’ve been awake lately, do you know what comes on TV after the show that comes on after Late Night with Jimmy Fallon? Let me tell you. Jennifer Tilly’s playing poker these days. It ain’t pretty.

So, my whole life seems a sorry tale of ridiculous insomnia, but that isn’t the case. There’s at least a little bit of knitting going on. Last Saturday we had our monthly knit group meeting, where we said a fond farewell to Jennifer:

Jennifer’s husband is in the military, and his current assignment is in South America. So she’s moving down there with him, at least for the next six months or so. We sure will miss her in our group, and wish her well. Yvonne brought a yellow cake with coconut from the Pennsylvania Dutch Farmer’s Market (Yum!), and Marie bought a card for all of us to sign. It was a lovely afternoon.

This week I took the plunge and bought a netbook computer. If you’re interested I bought the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-PU1X-BU, which I chose in part because of the reported long battery life. Also it seemed like a pretty hot seller on Amazon and I figured all those people can’t be wrong!

Now I have a little computer when someone else is playing or doing homework on mine, and can write or blog or surf from just about anywhere. Of course, today I had kids playing on both of my computers, and I found myself without one anyway. I did spend quite a bit of time trying to get my photo editing software to install, and then resorted to contacting support. The first guy I chatted with wasn’t helpful at all, but the second guy said, “which netbook do you have?” and knew right away what was causing the problem. He had me up and running in no time after spending a lot of time struggling with it last night. So, I was able to edit my photos, upload, and blog from this new little computer tonight. I think this little machine and I are going to get along great.

The main reason I got the thing though was that there is a lot I want to write lately, and some of my best ideas come to me when there’s not a computer in site to jot them down. I’m no good holding a pen for more than about 30 seconds so this is a good solution. Not much bigger than a day planner, yet, the keyboard is comfortable.

Anyway, it’s late again so I’m going to sign off and go to bed. It’s a three-day weekend so I’m hoping to get caught up on some of that missing sleep. Wish me luck!

Biggest Group Meetup EVER!

Saturday September 12 was a big day for the Bowie Knitters. A really BIG day. It was our biggest group session ever. We had a really long table strung together, and we still ran out of room! I couldn’t even get everyone’s picture. It was crazy fun.

The word is getting out about us. We had lots of new visitors to our group, and everyone was a real delight to get to know. I hope they’ll all be back!

As usual, to see a bigger version of the photo, please click on the thumbnail!

You know, I never imagined when I started my little once a month knit group that it would ever take off like this. I almost got overwhelmed when I looked around me and realized how many wonderful new friends I’ve made over the last year or so. This has been a real blessing for me personally. It sure has changed my life for the better to be in such good company.

Uh oh. My power is flickering. I’d better finish this post before it evaporates. More knitting news tomorrow… I promise!

Listen to this article

Long Overdue Group Report

Hi there! I know, I know… not very nice of me to be away from the blog for more than a week. But… I’ve been sick. Nothing terrible, really… but I did wind up missing several days of work this week and sitting around like a bump wishing I could be more productive. But, last weekend, we had an interim monthly gathering of the Bowie Borders Knit Group, and I do have a few photos to share! As usual, click to make with the bigger…

Our group is meeting again next week on September 12, in lieu of meeting this week on Labor Day Weekend. I’m already looking forward to it. We had quite a few people just drop by our table and ask if they could join us, so maybe we’ll have some new people next week. We also had a young girl spy our activities and she asked if someone would teach her to knit. Luckily there was some spare yarn and some extra needles, and before long, our young charge was knitting away. She went away with a piece of knitted fabric somewhat resembling a trapezoid, but it was HERS, and she made it, all by herself.

As for me, I’ve been knitting again, rather happily. I have photos and stories to share later this week.

That’s all for now; I promise I won’t wait more than a week to catch up with the blog next time. Happy knitting!

Listen to this article

Who Knits in August, Anyway?

The answer is: Lots of people!

Today was the August meeting of our Bowie Knitter’s Group, and we had lots of fun and several new folks visit us today. Below are my photos from today. As always, click to make with the bigger:

We welcomed some new folks this month, and we hope they enjoyed their visit with us! Jennifer, Olivia and Sylvia came for the first time. I hope they had fun and will come back again!

We also had three or four visitors from inside the store who spied our knitting group and will be joining us in the future. How fun!

Knit group was varied and really fun today with so many people working on so many cool projects to talk about. I had kind of a sleepy day today and had a bit of trouble staying focused on my scarf. I had a long nap this evening though, which explains why I’m up late at night updating the blog!

Dina from knit group asked me to post new photos of the den, now that I’ve got all the pictures up. I’ll do that tomorrow. The kids have been home from vacation for a week now and so far, no one has dared to mess up this room. That’s a really good thing.

Next meetup is September 12, due to the Labor Day holiday. Can’t wait already. Goodnight for now!

Listen to this article

Next Page »