Tuesday Night Knitters get their Yarn on!

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Last night was another fun evening with the Tuesday Night Knitters. Although it wasn't the largest group we've ever had, we still had a very decent turnout of regulars, semi-regulars and even three new faces!

First of all, we celebrated Mary Jane's birthday -- Happy Birthday, Mary Jane!

the smiling birthday girl
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There was even delicious birthday cake:

Yum!
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And we got to meet Donna & Brian, a very cute and nice husband & wife knitting team who are friends of Mary Jane's, (and who were kind enough to bring the birthday cake):

Such a cute couple!

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Donna is currently knitting a Hokie square, and Brian is knitting a necktie from the book Knitting With Balls. (Incidentally, Brian & Donna were quoted in yesterday's RTD article about the Hokie Healing Blankets. How cool is that? Although we were all a bit annoyed that every square depicted in the article was crocheted, rather than knitted.)

Anyway, we're always glad to greet new faces and welcome more knitters to TNK -- come back anytime!

Other attendees last night included Katie, Jane and Norma:

admiring Katie's cute Havanese puppy pictures
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I love the cardigan Jane is wearing. Handknit, of course.

Robin C. and Nancy sat across from me and knitted and chatted:

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And Renny also sat across from me, and shared stories about her darling granddaughter:

proud Grandma!
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Patsy sat to my right, and in between sips of her Frappaccino,


worked on her beautiful Salvia sweater from the Spring '07 issue of Knitter's:

my photo does not do the colors or stitch pattern justice
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Patsy is using her own handspun yarn for the ribbing at the waistband. Lovely!

Poor Isobel dropped a paver on her foot this weekend, so was propping it up while she knit:

the pain didn't seem to stop her from enjoying herself!
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If you're a regular reader, you know that Issy is one prolific knitter, and seems to crank out at least one, (often more) beautiful finished objects every week. (When I grow up, I want to knit like that.) She's currently working on a pair of socks, perhaps to keep her poor injured foot warm:

Nice!

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Cathy sat to my left, and to her left was another new face -- Loren, who is a new yarn rep for the Richmond area (and probably much of the mid-Atlantic region):

Cathy & Loren
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Lauren was gracious enough to drag her huge sample suitcase into B&N so that we could all drool over new yarns that may very well find their way into our local yarn shops in the near future. Mary Jane was a smart-cookie shop owner and took advantage of the market research we provided, as we oooo'd and ahhhh'd and fondled Loren's various and sundry yarns:

Pandora's suitcase
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Loren is a rep for several yarn vendors, including O-wool and SWTC, who provides such yarns as Tofutsies, Karoake, and Vickie Howell's new line of yarns. She's also the new rep for Jane's sister Lawre's lovely knitting bags, and brought a plethora of bags and beautiful swatches for us to marvel over. But what really caught my eye last night were the handspun and/or hand-dyed yarns from Pagewood Farm. They have some really luscious offerings, and so I'm looking forward to being able to purchase them locally sometime soon!

Here's a little yarn pr0nography, from within the magical-mystical wonderland that is a yarn rep's suitcase (click any image to super-size it):


Finally, this is totally unrelated, but still fun -- I felt compelled to take a picture of the car parked in front of mine at Barnes & Noble. As a former Parrothead myself, I can truly appreciate the spirit of this artwork (click for big):

I love the hula-dancing parrots
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Fins to the left, fins to the right....

:-)

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