An Excellent Beginning

A few friends and I started a knitting meet-up today. I invited some friends and most said yes. One had to back out last minute because of illness, one didn't respond, and one had previous plans but will be there next week.

We were to meet at the Highlands Ranch Tattered Cover at 10:30a today, Sunday. Somewhere yesterday evening, my brain decided to take a rest. We were discussing Sunday food plans with the inlaws and we decided to meet at Sweet Tomatoes for brunch. On Sunday. At 10:30a.

See, usually when these things happen, there's a little bell that goes off in my brain that says, "Wait... isn't there something else I have to do at that same time?" But, last evening, that brain bell was dead asleep. (I blame being overly excited about my poker playing.) It woke up about an hour later when I was blogging (last night) about my weekend plans. So Dave and I had this disagreement about what to do. I said we should just call his parents and see if we can move it to late lunch/early dinner and he said that would be rude to his parents. I argued that, yes it was totally my gaff but his parents generally don't care what time we eat together and not showing up to the thing that I started/planned would be rude to my friends! So we decided I would take the separate vehicle and leave the brunch a bit early. I was still an hour and 15 minutes late to the knitting. sigh.

But! We ended up staying until almost 2p! I love knitting group! There's some knitting but there's tons of talking and sharing and laughing and I haven't had a regular weekly group since I left Tucson 3 years ago! I'm so excited about having a group again, it's stupid. And, it's only the first week! Hopefully it'll stick and not fall apart in a week or two.

Our tech savvy friend said we should start a Rav group to keep updated on the time/meeting place since it's going to switch off every other week. We assigned it to her but couldn't think of a name. Any suggestions?

Yaaaay, knitting group, Ruth!

One Week

Like many of us, stress makes me cast-on. I was doing really well with my WIP Wipeout (something I've decided football season is perfect for...) and then I got all bunched up about my mom last week and cast-on for four new things!

This is my favorite...

It's the Bed Jacket from Romantic Style. I swatched some other color of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece for a tank top. So I didn't re-swatch for this project. I know, probably a recipe for disaster but I'm flying by the seat of my needles these days. Especially since I'm planning on modifying the crap outta this thing. I'm adding 2" to the length and once I get to where you split for the fronts, I'm switching over to the super-long version's instruction because I like the long sleeves on that one better then the 3/4 length sleeves of the Bed Jacket. Should be interesting! I'm going to put in a lifeline, just in case.

This has been a super fast knit! I'm loving it and the yarn couldn't be better. It's about a million strings plied together so I thought it would be maddeningly splitty but it's not. It's soft and lovely and a light shade of sage green. Maybe a little too yellow for my skin but it's mostly for me to throw over a t-shirt when I'm sitting around the house.

It would be an even faster knit except for the fact that I skipped a yarnover and had to tink back 3 rows, then when I got to the big decrease row, I suddenly, inexplicably, switched from purling to knitting and didn't notice until 2 1/2 rows later! WTF??

I can't get enough of this pattern and glare at the WIP's whenever they whine for my attention. Especially the never-ending blanket. Hate that thing. It's gotten so wide that a row takes forever and it's so heavy that I can only do 2 or 3 rows before my wrists cry uncle.

For those of you who miss dear Trevor's face, we got a really sweet picture of him after his play-off flag-football game. His team came in 2nd in their division and they each got a little trophy. They had the coolest, nicest man for their coach and he gave a little speech about each kid before he handed them their trophy. Trev was named Most Improved by the coach and he was so proud of that trophy that he carried it around all day. And wanted to continue carrying it all night...

(he put his old soccer trophy next to it to keep it company)

Brown Sheep love, Ruth!

Good Thing I Knit!

I spend a good portion of my knitting time untangling yarn. So when I came downstairs this morning and was greeted with this mess.....


That's 4 video game controllers in a snarled up tangle. No sweat! Silly boys.

On the knitting front, still moving along, slowly but surely, on the Baudelaire socks. There's two big lacy holes every other row in the pattern. The holes on the right (Sl 1, k2tog, pass slipped stitch over) are about half the size of the holes on the left (SSK, slip new stitch from right needle to left, pass second stitch on left needle over new stitch, slip back to right needle). (This is a free pattern at knitty.com, so I don't think I'm infringing any copyright. At least I hope not!) Any tips here friends?

More garage cleaning....

Lucky me, Ruth!

My Imaginary Friends

Apparently, the Knitty Professor is way too modest to speak of the lovely soiree she put together. I shall speak of it for her (I hope that's OK!)....

She had a get-together to meet and greet Chris. Chris is visiting and vacationing

and Estes... ing.

Upon arrival the knitters were greeted with this...

Very brave of the Professor to leave such a beautiful yarn within reach of sneaky knitters!

Once in the door you get to see the lovely, Yoga Mat Bag FO in action...

After that, I only took a couple of pictures.

Here's Jennifer (a colleague and non-knitting friend of the Prof), the Professor herself and Jenny of Cast On, Cast Off fame. (I suck at names and apologize for any mistakes!) Jennifer was embroidering these adorable blocks that she had drawn herself! They were of the alphabet and an appropriate picture (a for acorn, b for bunny, etc.). She was making these to put into a quilt. I'd love to see the end product!

Cast On, Cast Off is a blog I already read with regularity. She has this really cool "Feminist of the Day" thing and even if she doesn't post every day, there's always a new feminist with an inspiring quote. (And a special thank-you to her for helping me figure out the sock I was stuck on. Thanks!)

Here's some more people....

On the right is the Nerd Knits. (Again, shamefully, woefully bad at remembering people's names.) And on the left is the guest of honor, Chris of Stumbling Over Chaos.

After that, I forgot to take any more pic's. I was having fun and knitting and eating. And eating. And eating. Could. Not. Stop. Eating. The Professor is a talented cook and a surpassing hostess. She had three different kinds of grilled, skewered meats, big chunks of chorizo, sauteed in red wine, prosciutto wrapped-melon chunks, prosciutto-wrapped giant dates sauteed in something else, chunks of crusty bread next to a bowl of roasted red and yellow peppers and garlic slivers, 2 pitchers of homemade Sangria, and more that I can't even remember but I'm sure I ate it anyway! And to top it off, she served strawberry-and-two-other-things sorbet and dulce de leche ice cream that she made!! I'm sure everyone noticed and I completely embarrassed myself, but seriously, tasted everything. At least twice. I teased her saying if she ever gave up the world of academia she could certainly make a fine living as a caterer.

I also met Wanda. We talked quite a lot and she showed her recent yarn catches from the New Hampshire Wool Fest she went to. I also briefly met SheepInTheCity and several others that I had them write their blogs down for me but at the moment, can't find the card they are written on. I'll find it later today, I'm sure and when I do, I'll post the links!

There was also a very sweet chic named Lindsey. Sadly, she is blogless. It's a shame because she was great fun! She was the only person in the room of about 15 people without a blog. We were all trying to turn her to the dark side but she explained, "Please. I can barely get my words from here [points to head] to here [points to mouth]." See, told you she was funny! She had a copy of the new Loop-d-loop crochet book and was gracious enough to go back to her car and get it so I could take a look. Despite the lack of undergarments throughout, it's a great book!

The Prof also had a book that I'm going to have to get. It's Knitting Lingerie Style. I saw it in the bookstore a couple of weeks ago and thought, 'Seriously?!' and went on my way without even opening it. Well, I opened it Tuesday and, wow! It's got the cutest tops and all kinds of stuff that I want to knit. How cliche am I - judging a book by it's cover??? Embarrassing.

As to the title of this post, when I told my husband where I was going (a get-together for strangers who've met through our knitting blogs), he said, "So. You're finally going to go meet your imaginary friends? Hmmm."

Good times, Ruth!