sf ravelry meet-up

Ok. Here we go. Finally.

cute little badge given at the door if you donated towards the rental of the space
excess donations went back to the women's building

This event was the brainchild of Erica (rav links), and a bunch of her buddies who helped pull it all together. She rented out the San Francisco Women's Building, and just took the chance that enough people would donate at the door to cover the rent. I'm not entirely sure if she broke even, but from the looks of things (and how much she told me the place cost to rent), I think she probably did okay:


That's about 1/2 of the downstairs area. That shot was taken from the balcony, where even more people hung out and also nibbled and munched because the event was also a pot-luck and there were two or three big tables full of yummy goodness up there.


Donna and I sat up there for a bit snacking, chatting, knitting, and people watching.


There's Donna. She wears the blurry well, yah?
(sorry D.; shoulda checked my camera better and retaken that LOL)

There were no vendors selling at this event, and to be honest with you, I loved that. I mean, I love to shop, especially to support the local folk, but it really was nice to have an event where it was about the socializing. A couple of people who would normally have had a booth at something like this even told me that they loved having a day where they could go to a group thing and just have fun.

There were A LOT of door prizes donated (I lost count, but close to 50). There were posts about them on a Ravelry Thread if you want to snivel about what you missed out on by not coming.




Donna and I both won door prizes. Whoot! Donna won a pattern that goes along with that bag of blue yarn pictured above (second from the left) which was donated by ArtFibers, and I won a gift certificate towards classes at KnitOneOne.

Some of the other fun things at the event were machine knitting demonstrations, and needle felting demonstrations, and oh...let us not forget the hand and arm massages offered up by Erika and crew.

I have to say, while I had a blast at the event itself, I had just as much fun (maybe even more) just getting there and back. Thanks to Jennifer for putting it out there that those of us riding the train should try to coordinate and sit in the same car. I got to hang out with several folks, and I loved it.

For as much fun as I had on Sunday, it would seem it also slightly bummed me out a bit. Lame, I know. But when TheMostImportantGuy asked me later that day how the event was, and I said, "It was great," I must have said it with a lilt in my voice or something because all he said back was, "Awwww!".

When forced to articulate further, I think there were a few people that I had hoped to see that were noticeably absent, and I also explained to him that I think the Meet-Up reminded me of how infrequently I, well...meet up! I just love hanging out with other knitters. It really feeds me to be with my peeps, and I don't even mean that it has to be with people that I know real well, either. I just get a lot out of being with other fiber enthusiasts. It feels good. Really good. And I just don't do it enough because I can't find a group that meets at a time or location that I can get to easily (excuses, really).

SOoooo many people that I saw at the Meet-Up said, "Wow, I haven't seen you in ages!" I got that response from the SF Sock Knitters, people from the Berkeley Stitch-N-Bitch, ladies from The Yarn Cottage, and people from the Napa Weekend Warriors (which I was actually a bit of an instigator in starting). I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about the situation yet, but something has gotta shift. I either need to make getting together a priority, or I need to start something up that is closer to home and at a time I can make it. Kinda scary. I'm not that much of the activist sort. I'm more of a sheep when it comes to group functions.
Ha. Sheep.

Anyhow...meepy awwww it's over attitude aside, the SF Ravelry Meet-Up was awesome...and I sure hope it becomes and annual event.


ed: to fix a slew of typos, and I probably still have not caught them all. sorry!