knit night and you should too

I can’t remember the exact date that I started to attend knit night; I think it was sometime in January or February of this year. I didn’t know it at the time, but making the decision to go really changed my life. I know that sounds silly, but first you have to understand that I am not an outgoing person. To go out of my way to attend something in which I did not know anybody was a lot for me to put out there. 

I found out on ravelry that knit night is held every Thursday from 7-9 at Hyperion Espresso, a wonderful locally owned, one of a kind coffee shop in the historic downtown area. If you are looking for your own knit night, go to the ravelry link above and look for a group in your local area. Usually there is a knit night thread on the discussion board, but if there isn’t start one.

That first Thursday I timidly asked A. and D. if I could sit with them and knit. They were so gracious and made sure to include me in the conversation, catching me up on the relationships about whom they were speaking. I found out that J., another knit night regular was about to have her first baby. A. was knitting a cute pair of baby booties for the aforementioned baby. D. was working on a gauge swatch for a sweater using the most beautiful shade of peachy orange. I had brought a tank, which was a gift for my mom, to finish crocheting on the edging. We fell easily into conversation and the night was so enjoyable I decided to return the next Thursday, and the next, and so on. (as a side note I was really happy that we were all at a pretty similar stage in life, mid-twenties and could relate)

From a purely knitting perspective it’s wonderful to have people that know the craft to bounce ideas off, share patterns with, and discuss yarns. If you get stuck and need a solution there is always someone there who knows how to get you unstuck. But knit night is so much more than just knits and purls.

My new friends seem like old friends already. As we each arrive and take our seats around the table we are all abuzz with news from the previous week. Whether it’s stories about the ridiculous things our husbands (or babies) do, triumphs and tribulations at work, or bigger news about life changing events like pregnancies or engagements, we share in each others joys, are supportive of each other when things aren’t how we would like, and problem solve when the situation calls for it. I’m so happy that I made the decision to put myself out there.

it's not work if you love what you do

A while back I had dinner with some close family friends, who also happen to be successful entrepreneurs. At the time my husband L. and I were thinking about opening a craft brewery. In the course of our discussion our friends gave us this gem of advice- do something from which you never want to retire. Unfortunately the brewery didn’t work out, but the advice from our dinner wasn’t lost. After ruminating on those words I came to the realization that work felt a lot like work (counting down the years to retirement) and had started to creep into my personal life. Time for a plan...

My relationship with knitting started in college. Initially I found it difficult and a bit frustrating and eventually I put down my needles. A few years later I saw my assistant knitting and asked her to show me her method. I still wasn’t getting it. If you can believe this I actually taught myself to knit back and forth using both my left and right hand to pick stitches. This method resulted in no purling, but did create one row of knit stitches followed by a row of twisted stitches. It wasn’t until I went to Germany that it was brought to my attention that I was knitting incorrectly. Through broken English and German an older woman showed me that I needed to pass the needle back to my left hand after finishing a row. Eureka!

Enter Youtube, or a knitter’s best friend. After I learned the correct way to knit my knitting took on a life of its own. I wanted to learn different methods of casting on, cabling, knitting in the round, and a world of other things. After purchasing a few books and not being able to make heads or tails of the pictures drawn in them, the media specialist part of my brain kicked in and I searched on youtube. Wow. Everything you could ever want to learn about knitting you can find there. Try it. 

Back to the plan. Because I can’t yet afford retail space, but want to work towards my goal of opening my own yarn shop, I decided to start my website, worldknit & handspun. While it’s been an incredible amount of work to create my website, dye yarn and roving, spin yarn, design patterns, and knit everything myself, it hasn’t felt like work and I do love to do it!