down to one knitting group, to knit with trellis and velour yarns

After lack of interest in my Wednesday knit/crocheting group, I gave that up and went down to one knitting group only 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month, enough for me to run and organize.

Soon to be done with that shamrock pattern dishcloth in 100% cotton Rowan yarn and onto maybe some scarves made from trellis yarn (some call it train track yarn and or other names) and velour yarn given me by my best friend.

have a pile of unfinished knitting projects that I intend to get to like a "keyhole" scarf where you knit a slit along by working from two sparate skeins of thin red ribbon yarn on each row and not letting the yarns meet in the middle for several rows (to leave wide enough of a slit to pull the other end of the scarf through while wearing around the neck). Also currently working on a throw for my 89 inch sofa long enough to cover it thus allowing a friend and I to wrap up in it while leaving it still quite long so we both can enjoy it while sitting apart from each other.

new knitting projects

working on a throw in diagonal garter stitch in Encore acrylic (denim color) yarn start with a slipnot and put and increase on the beginning of each row until desire width of 5 ft and increase on the beginning of each row and a decrease on the end of each row until desired length is reached likely in my case the length of the sofa.

and on a shamrock pattern dishcloth made on green Rowan brand 100% cotton yarn pattern from the site purpleduckie.com

bag full of yarn and half done knitting projects left on my front porch this morning

I intend to work on these projects and to finish them. They are half done scarves with balls of yarn attached and still on the knitting needles. A woman who has left the area today asked who in my group would take them and I being the group leader said I would accept them. I imagine she was flying and couldn't be bothered with them or with airport security holding her up over yarn and stuff, so she may have decided to best to leave them behind for someone else to use them.

So, I will finish them as handknits for charity to benefit the needy and the ill this winter. I will get them to Food and Friends and they will get them to where they need to go.

I will be running two knitting groups now

Such is life, going from no knowledge of knitting just a few years ago, to knitting scarves, a baby's sweater and now a dishcloth.

I have 2 knitting groups, one at Adega Wine Cellars in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland and another at La Madeleine (a French restaurant with several branches in our area), in Rockville, Maryland on different nights of the 2nd and 4th weeks of each month. The one for La Madeleine is new and yet to form, but if I have just one knitter besides myself that will make the 2 of us at least and people will see knitting in public, and especially a man knitting! and realize this is catching on and is not just for old ladies.

I was pleased when finally a man who knits e-mailed me about a knitting group I started, and I replied in the info about it and he e-mailed that he planned to attend. He is interesting as all of my knitters are, but he stands out in a way because he is male whereas all of my knitters have been female, and I have been wanting to provide a space where a man doesn't feel self conscious about knitting in public.

Traditionally in our country the USA,, this has been some secret thing that a man does not let the world know he does, all by himself away in his house hopefully out of the sight of anyone else. My goodness, what would women think or what would other men think if he did something so "unmanly"?

But this particular guy is a creative type, he not only knit for his own dad, but he does nice things like put on shadow puppet plays and workshops for kids and adults, if I read his website correctly. but he also goes camping with his partner, so he appears to be a definitely a well-rounded guy with a variety of skills.

Don't know if I am still doing Meetup.com but might keep the subscription for a month or so more. It just miffs me that I could lose control of my groups' destiny if I quit Meetup. Meetup tells me that if I stop paying the monthly fee, then an automatic thing kicks in where the group members are asked if they want to vote in another organizer. If I knew that would be the case I would never have signed up for Meetup in the first place. Much as it is a great tool, I feel hooked into this to avoid losing the leadership of this group.

Based on suggestions from group members, I have taken the group away from a coffee shop with nothing to offer but mostly drinks and sweet stuff and awful, heavy, densely caloric white bread sandwiches, UGH! to a delectable full-service restaurant menu of sandwiches, salads, soups, wines, interesting non-alcohol drinks, etc. Adega Wine Cellars love the place.

Then La Madeleine with its French food in a rustic French country type ambience.... many entrees for under a $10.
Three rooms there (small, medium, large) to reserve for groups. One knitter raved about that place, and another about the rooms off of the main dining area.
For now, it is enough to try to reserve a long table in the general dining area so we can spread out our knitting projects.

Will I continue with Meetup.com?

I don't know at this point, I may be better off stepping down as organizer of this Knit and Crochet Silver Spring Meetup Group, it costs 72 dollars each 6 months and my own electric bills are getting worse. So as a cost-cutting measure, I likely will give up Meetup.com and save a few bucks.

Whether or not I want to continue to lead a knitting group at all, is something I am not sure of just yet. I will talk to the knitting group this Thursday and see what the group says. Does it want to be a Yahoo or e-mail group, great I have had so much difficulty trying to set up a Yahoo group some time ago. Someone else who knows far more about Yahoo than I can do that.

Maybe Michelle can set up Yahoo, maybe I can find those who want to split between Michelle and I. She can have her own night and I can have mine. Or maybe I would rather do something else entirely.

I am very confused at this point about what I will do with this knitting group.

Someone I liked died last month, I feel some regret I haven't kept in closer touch with her. I just got a prayer card from her husband about her passing. So after I deal with the ant kill man, I have to call him.

I have other errands to run, to get stuff from the cleaners, I feel the need to get out of my house now for a while.

Yarns International

Yarns International is giving up its store in Bethesda, Maryland and is going to have an online store, in maybe more narrow choice of offerings so I bought a lot of books, patterns, yarn, needles, etc. long before I' d want them.

I have a nice knitting/crocheting Meetup.com group of 12 people, 11 women and one man, myself, so I am hoping to find some more male knitters. Most knitting groups even here in the DC area are practically all women (I don't mind, but I want more men to do knitting and crocheting.)

looking forward to this Thursday's knit & crochet event

I have now a knit and crochet group of 10 people, 7 RSVPed yes and 1 maybe and 1 no. for this Thursday's Knit & Crochet Silver Spring Meetup Group. I look forward to seeing what projects people are working on.

Hopefully, Tuesday I can get more of the seam sewing on my baby sweater done. The parts are all knitted but just need assembling and buttons sewed onto the front.

2nd knt/crochet meetup messed up

Ugh! what an evening, long heavy pouring rain, keeping Caribou Coffee customers and some membersof my knit/crochet group away, most likely. only the 2nd group event, I tried having. I missed gtoup members who came, whom I didn't know showed up until after the fact, I sat there in Caribou and knit thinking noone would show up in all this rain.

I waited until 8 pm, and then left as the shop had to close at 9, instead of its normal closing time of 10 with no new customers and a blown fuse cutting off lights and espresso coffee machine.

I had write an apology to those group members I had unwittingly missed.

Just need to put this evening behind, move on and do better next time.