Knitnightouters...and now I'm one of them

After a (too) relaxing weekend in Central Florida, I arrived home Monday afternoon, put everything away, prepared dinner, then headed down to Ft. Lauderdale to attend my first meeting of Ft. Lauderdale Knitnightouters. It was held at Border's bookstore. Even though it was a schlep for me - took about 45 minutes to get there - it was certainly worth it. It was attended by 8 women of various knitting abilities. Catherine, who is sort of the "leader" of the group, is quite an accomplished knitter. She wrote two books on knitting socks - The Sock Journal and The Sock Calendar, both of which I purchased from her as I LOVE knitting socks. I sat in awe as Beth and Catherine discussed buying a sweater at a thrift store and possibly "frogging" it and reworking the yarn. I could never imagine even finding the tucked in threads needed to begin pulling out the stitches. Two of the women who came were new knitters (although Lois was crocheting at the moment). Martha, who has been knitting for only a month, had three projects going. Although she needed help to rip and realign her stitches, she is doing an amazingly wonderful job. I felt pretty proud, though, as others admired the socks that I had made (thanks to Alison and her friend Becky, whose pattern it originally was). I learned a new stitch by watching Andie make a scarf in cashmere. Catherine called it the Brioche stitch. You purl 1, then knit 1 into the space BELOW the stitch, and at the beginning of each row you slip one off. My brother Randy wants me to knit a cashmere scarf for him and now I know just how I am going to do it. I also got some tips on where to buy certain yarns. I am looking forward to attending next week's meeting. They usually meet every second Monday, but last night's was just a bonus meeting. I'm so glad I went.

Today is busy (of course) - meeting my dear friend Carla and her baby Parker for lunch. Carla moved to Atlanta in 1999, married her high school sweetheart and now has Parker to show for it. They are visiting her mom here in Florida, then leaving in two weeks because they are moving to.....the center of MANHATTAN!!!! How lucky can you get (ok, not THAT lucky because it's COLD there). I am excited, though, because as a holiday gift I bought a Learn to Knit kit at Costco for Carla, who expressed an interested in knitting. I hope she catches the bug. Look what happened when I taught Alison the basics!!! Tonight I am meeting my friend Cindy for dinner....it's great to see people who I don't ordinarily get a chance to spend more than telephone time with.

So - I'm off to get busy!!