Saturday Morning Knit and Bitch

This morning the skies were grey and cloudy and the weather forecast is for rain! While rain is no big deal in the Pacific Northwest, Central California is far below its seasonal average. In fact, there is talk of drought and water rationing this summer. The worst side effect of the lack of rain is extremely dry grasses, bush and trees. California is prone to spectacular wild fires. If the lack of rain continues, the fire season will be long and dangerous.

Saturday mornings I join 14 other ladies at Janna'a Needle Arts for our version of Knit and Bitch. It is a interesting and diverse group of women, ranging from a federal judge to nurses, teachers and attorneys.

Janna (the lady in blue in the top picture) owns the store and hosts our group. She grew up in Holland and learned to knit as part of her school curriculum. She is a cheerful, smiley woman who is always willing to share her knowledge or help with a problem. She also is very aware of her customers and is constantly on the alert for new yarns and other products (thus single handedly enabling my stash addiction). It is unusual to walk into her store each each week and not discover a new book, yarn, buttons, purse handles or magazine.

In fact, Janna surprised me with an order for yarn I made last January. The yarn is called Cyprus Mohair. The swatch Janna had knitted from the sample was quite lovely. Although variegated, the color changes were subtle and created a shadowing effect.

I envision a loose, comfy sweater knitted from the yarn. However, apparently the company handling the yarn was difficult to deal with. Janna told me she had to continually check on the status of the order. Each time she was told it was "back ordered". After 8 weeks, the yarn was finally was shipped. It was a good thing I wasn't in a hurry or had a special project earmarked for the yarn.

Janna also had received the Spring 2007 issue of Knitters. I immediately thought of Rose-Kim Knits. Jessica features "Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?" on her blog wherein she posts pictures of the latest knitting faux pas with comments. The cover page of Knitters current issue looks a lot like my first attempt at hand knitting when I was 8 years old. I had no idea how to shape so I knitted two large rectangles and sewed them together. This might have made a cute top except for the fact I used two different kinds of yarn and achieved two spectacularly different gauges. The top was lopsided, uneven, and a general knitted disaster. In fact, it was so bad, I threw it away and didn't try hand knitting again until I was well into my 40's. Turns out I should have waited. That top could have made the cover!