Tonight I got out for about an hour to a new neighborhood knitting group. For a while I’d been hearing rumors about who knits in our neighborhood, and I’m glad Amy took the lead to gather everyone together. I learned to knit in first grade, and I remember making a few long and lumpy scarves as gifts when I was a child, but I don’t think I have knitted in about twenty years. This summer while walking past a tempting sale table I picked up some pretty yard and told myself I’d start knitting again. The yard and needles have remained in the bag since that summer Saturday, so I was grateful for the opportunity to get going on my scarves. I really appreciated my other neighbors helping me learn how to cast on stitches, and even though I had to leave early, I made a nice small swatch, an experiment.
It was fun too to sit together in a living room, talk and get to know each other better. We’ve had women’s gatherings where the primary purpose has been to be social. Mix and mingle, eat munchies, that type of thing. But I found it was fun to get together to do something besides just being social, to knit and to begin to knit ourselves together as well. There were at least a few neighbors who I don’t know well at all, whom I don’t see or talk with much.
We talked about knitting projects and patterns. Excuses to go yarn shopping, spousal support, and who has been prohibited from buying any more yarn. There were sad pet stories shared. And we chatted about Halloween – “how many bags of candy are you buying?” – and costumes and of course children. I enjoyed hearing about one child, a friend of ours, who wants to be purple hair Pocohontas Alaskan Airlines; his mother was wondering if they should send out an email letting the neighborhood know who this boy was trying to be! I laughed as I walked home, happy and grateful, looking forward to our next knitting night.
