Now tell me, are these pictures not just shining examples of how happy knitters are? They were taken at the Chapters presentation by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee on Wed. June 4th. The first is a picture of a contingent who were at the Yarn Harlot's event from the KCVI (a local High School) knitting club, which was represented by these three lovely grade 11 students and their Math teacher/knitting buddy (who of course is equally lovely).I was so glad to get to meet the girls as I had sent in a pile of yarn and needles for them to use last week for their "Relay For Life" fundraiser for Cancer. I had heard that the knitting activity that was offered had gone really well but it wasn't until I got to see the pictures that I realized how many guys turned out for the knitting component. ( I figure that the guys were smart enough to know where the nice pretty girls were going to be!)
By the way, the KCVI team's picture has been lifted from Stephanie's blog as I was so excited to get to meet the girls that I forgot to take a picture. The other thing of note with this group is the quality of their knitting. Now remember that these girls are in grade 11 and they are able to whip up toe-up socks with Kool-Aid dyed wool and intricate lace/chevron patterns. Their enthusiasm is amazing and makes me proud to be a knitter.
The picture below is of Stephanie with Amy and Kim, a mom and daughter team of fine knitters and lovely ladies. (Kim and I spent some time comparing tattoos - although my 3 little roses on my l
eft ankle are quite insignificant compared to the lovely art work she has, but having a tattoo of any size does initiate one into the "tatt" club and gives one the privelege of discussing and comparing with any other member of said club.)The only thing that I would suggest is that the next time that the Yarn Harlot comes to Kingston, we should have dibbs on Stephanie's calendar for a later date in the month as I've been running into people all over the place who hadn't gotten around to opening up our e-newsletter in time to hear about her arrival and consequently missed out on the event as it was only 3 days after the newsletter went out.
This last picture is of another knitting group who came to visit us at the store last Saturday from the Laval area, north of Montreal. We were so glad to host this group of sensible women who know how important it is to get away from our regular lives now and then, and spend some time with friends doing things that we enjoy: shopping, chatting, knitting, eating, etc. It was particularly nice to see Caroline (far right) who, while she lived in Kingston, was a faithful participant of our Thursday night "knit and chat" for years until they moved to Quebec.
I've come to realize just how important this type of outing is and am going to be pursuing it more seriously in the future by approaching Tourism Kingston, to see if they would want to collaborate on some kind of a package deal for knitting groups to welcome them to Kingston. It's such a great city and we have so much to offer to people who want to get away for a bit.
Do you have friends from out of town, or are you part of a knitting group who would like to visit our city for a few days or even hours of R&R - knitting style? Let me know as it would be great to have some leads to go to the tourism board with.
