Knitting circle: not just for grannies

Fall's been late coming to my town. As recently as last weekend, it was in the 80s. The maples in my yard are stubbornly green (though one's started to drop leaves early). The hills aren't the usual palette of oranges and reds and yellows. Fortunately, a cold front moved in; maybe that will coax the leaves to change. It's been rainy and grey and chilly and awful the last couple of days, and it looks like that'll continue all week. And we know what that means.

Knitting weather.

Not that I didn't knit all summer, but the point is that now it's chilly enough to have a scarf or a sweater piled onto my lap. So long, cottons! Hello, wools and mohairs! I'm fortunately to have a local yarn shop stocked to the ceiling with exactly the sorts of spun things I want to twine between my fingers. There's also a yarncat (the best kind that only smacks the yarn off the shelf and doesn't try to eat it), and they host a knitting circle on Monday nights.

Ever since I came home from France and realized I no longer know anyone in this town (and hence have no social life), I've been looking forward to Monday nights. After all, I don't care about anything on television on Mondays, and the gym's crowded at night now that the students are back. Knitting circle's become the highlight of my week. It gets me and Mom out of the house one evening a week, and we meet a number of amazing, inspiring women.

No doubt about it, the women in my knitting circle are characters. People drift in and out each week (we even have a man who's a regular), but there's a core group of twelve or so who show up almost every time, for half an hour or the whole two hours. People bring in homegrown or homemade snacks to nosh on, like the jalapeño jelly cream cheese dip. There's wine, there's yarn, there's the cat, there's a half-dozen projects of varying difficulties and degrees of completeness. I am astounded by some of the things those women knit. I'd still call myself an advanced beginner: I can do basic lace, I could probably cable if I wanted, but I'm not brave and bold in particular. I don't like seaming and I've never turned a heel. I can read a pattern, but I've never designed anything. Still, the women of knitting circle lavished my simple sweater with praise: I guess it's all about the fundamentals. Plus, I know if I do take on a major project, I'll have plenty of help. These women are sharp, and they know what they're doing, and they're generous enough to lend a hand.

Sure, we have minor strife and tribulation. Mom and I knit continental, and apparently we purl like no one else; the rest of the knitters are mostly English-style, wrappers instead of pickers. There's some friendly bickering about that ("Wrapping is slow!" "Continental is complicated!") as we try to argue the pros and cons of this purl stitch or that cast-on method. We talk about Yankees (Mom is one, and so are a couple of the other members) and how Southern women will say outlandishly snide things, as long as they're followed by "bless his/her/your heart". We talk about the job market, how much we enjoy or don't enjoy our jobs, whether we'd rather be knitting. Sure, most of them are plenty older than I am (but such dignity and sass!), but they're not the stereotypical grandmothers, rocking away and knitting ugly scarves in dull acrylics. These women are knitting hot pants and kicky hats with skull patterns on them. Sure, they're knitting baby blankets and self-striping socks, but with new, cool twists. Part of it is the amazing new yarns that are coming out (Fortissima makes me pine to knit socks of my own, and Koigu looks amazing no matter what you make out of it), but part of it is that knitting is cool again (thanks, Stitch & Bitch!). I may be the youngest there most weeks, but I'm not the only young person knitting.

I'm really looking forward to all this horrible weather. After all, I've got shows to knit through, and waiting rooms to knit in, and Christmas presents to get a start on. Plus, I want to have something to show off next week. Last night, I spent the whole evening struggling through a calamari snarl of the spring green wool/bamboo blend that I dropped the other day as I was heading to work, and trailed behind me for fifty feet or so. Good thing it was sunny then. Good thing I'm going to be keeping the ball in a Ziploc bag once I get it wound.