March Madness - Eats, Knits, & Leaves

Mad as a March Hare - supposedly, the term comes from the fact that rabbits at this time of year get all excited at the beginning of breeding season.

I don't know what that has to do with the madness that seemed to infect us knitters at the monthly gathering of Eats, Knits, & Leaves, but we definitely seemed to be a bit more manic than normal.

Clockwise from bottom left: Pat, Bea, Vicky, Patty, and Beth (with back to camera)

Certainly, we all seemed normal enough. We arrived with totes and bags in hand. We gathered around the table. We chose from the delicious herbal teas, brought as usual by Danielle of The Cozy Tea Cart in Brookline. We sat down to a marvelous selection of M&M Brownies brought by Vicky, and yummy shortbread cookies with jelly from Patty.

We pulled our work out of our bags, and began knitting.

Busy Fingers - but doing what?

At least, some of us did. But what the heck is Beth up to, there in the center back of the picture? Let's take a closer look...

Balloons?

Yes, balloons. Turns out, Beth is what's known as a twister, a person who creates art from balloons. She decided to share her art with us this month, and was that ever fun! Beth created a personalized wrist corsage for each and ever person at the table, carefully choosing the balloons to go with their outfits.

Pat Shows Off Her Corsage

She talked about some of the parties and fairs she's performed at. It's a lot of work to make a piece of balloon art, and unfortunately, when you're doing a children't party, they really want to see you make it right in front of them. So there's no preparing a bag full of balloon animals in advance. Beth must about twist her fingers off at a large party!

Thank you, Beth, for sharing your art with us!

Eats, Knits & Leaves - the Group

At the meeting, I discussed with Vicky, who has handled all the correspondence and e-mail reminders for us, the concept of streamlining the communication process by setting up a Yahoo! group. I also presented the idea to the whole group.

The general consensus was that it sounded like a good idea. We've become close enough as friends to want to get in touch with each other about projects, yarns, and other matters in between meetings, and there's been no one easy way to get in touch.

Until now. I have created the group Eats, Knits & Leaves at Yahoo! Groups. Pop over to that link and you'll find the home page for the group. Somewhere on that screen will be a "Join Group" button - click on that, and follow the instructions to sign up. You can choose to receive all messages in the form of e-mails, or opt to not receive e-mails and instead read the posts online.

Having a Yahoo! group gives us a calendar of events that can send out automatic reminders of meetings; a place to post pictures of meetings, projects, and whatever, a spot to share files; the ability to create a poll to solicit opinions from members; and a page for links to our favorite web resources. Plus, you won't ever have to find a specific members' e-mail if you want to reach them, and you can post a question to the group as a whole if you like. Group members just send a single e-mail to eatsknitsleaves@yahoogroups.com to get in touch with everyone!

I'm impressed with how we've come together as a group, just since last fall. We have a solid core of regulars, and we see new faces almost every month. Here's hoping we have many more years of knitting together ahead of us!

Technorati : eats knits & leaves, knitting, knitting in public