Monday Night Stitch Group !

Right up there with The Tuesday Night Knit Gang at Jason's Deli's is Monday Night Stitch Group. In some ways its better. It's definitely the best way I can imagine to start the week. Monday Night Stitch Group was born many, many years ago and although the members have varied through the years, the core of the group has remained as has its meaning; Friendship.

The Group was formed many years ago before my parents retired here and my Mother became a part of it. The reason its called "Stitch Group" is because what each person brings to the group has differed over the years. Not everyone knits. We have beading, embroidery, knitting, jewelry making, calligraphy, etc. Any art form goes. The most important thing about Monday Night Stitch Group is we are a small bunch of women whose friendships are invaluable to each other and we truly value the importance of and need our "girlfriend time" in our lives. It differs from Tuesday Nights only slightly. Tuesday night is mostly all knitting and there are many more people there. The women of Monday Night, I cannot imagine my life without each one of them in it. Each person is so special and important to me.

Mondays rotate from one person's house to another. Whoever is hosting will make the main course of our meal which this time of year is usually some awesome soup or stew. (Every woman in this group, with the exception of me, is an awesome cook so no matter where we go its always a feast. I generally only eat breakfast on Mondays because the evening are always filled with food!!) Someone else brings cheeses, crackers and breads or veggies and dips, some kind of appetizer type munchies, and someone else brings a dessert. There is always one person that has a 'bye' for the week and brings nothing and all these roles change from week to week.We all know the key things some people cannot have or are allergic too and that a couple of us are gluten sensitive so meals are graciously always planned around that. 

There are currently six of us in the group and also my Aunt Betty, though she attends by proxy most of the year, is also considered to be a member of the group but usually only joins us for the Holidays. Our current group is Me, Mom, Melanie, Lisa, Lori and Sidney. You know about me and Mom and a bit about Auntie Betty. Let me tell you about these fabulous other ladies...

Lisa comes from a military background and was an Army officer for several years. She and her husband have lived all over the place. Lisa has 2 daughters, Ariane and Marika; Ariane is a high school history teacher and Marika is in her last year of college pursuing a degree and career in the same. Ariane, the eldest daughter, is married and her step-daughter is Savannah of the famous Savannah's Sweater! (I still need to block the sweater so I can gift it to her). Lisa is a fabulous embroiderer and and fantastic knitter. She is an expert making Alan Dart patterns! Primarily, the different families of mice! They are beyond cute and her execution of these patterns is no less than spectacular. Knowing we are an Ohio State Buckeye family, she made these Templar Mice for my Mom as a gift...

Those are buckeyes on those little shields and Block O's on their little chests! So cute I can hardly stand it. She is expanding her knitting now and is knitting lace fingerless mitts! I'm not sure she is aware of how good she is. She is knitting these lace mitts like she's been knitting them her whole life. Occasionally I will get a text from her simply saying "knitting 911" and she'll come over for some help on what she's working on. She is really fearless about the things she is knitting and I am taking a few lessons from her on that. I used to be a lot more fearless than I am now but I'm slowly getting it back. By day, Lisa is a librarian who works at the Airforce base library.

Sidney is a master embroiderer and needle worker of any kind. She also does amazing bead work. She makes holiday ornaments, jewelry, shawl pins, almost anything with what she has at her disposal. Like myself, she and her husband dont have children, they have 4 cats with four of the most distinctive feline personalities, next to my Kona, that I have ever seen. Stitch group at their place always includes a little help from the cats! Here is a picture of an ornament she beaded for my Mom for Halloween, it has a little spider in the web of the beads...

I have several of Sidney's ornaments that have been gifted to me over the years and many of them are very, very elaborate. I just dont happen to have any pics readily available of them. She does truly amazing work. She tried knitting once. Once. She is no longer permitted to use knitting needles for anything. She is gifted knitted items because its the one thing she cannot do. She can do everything else though! My Mom always says that we look at what we do, knitting, and think that its easy. Piece of cake. We look at someone else's work and because we dont know how to do it it's like magic, well its true! Sidney makes a lot of magic. By day, Sidney is very involved with the Find A Grave website and helps people locate their loved ones burial sites and find out more about their families as she has been an expert in genealogy research for years.

Melanie is a fairly new knitter. And fearless she is too! She started out making shawls, a lace cowl and really wanted to make a lace shawl for her mother for Christmas. I told her about my Effortless pattern and at first she thought it was too difficult to make for her. I explained that it was called Effortless for a reason, it really is very easy to make even for beginners. So, one Monday evening I helped her cast one and get the first few rows going and she had it from there. Once she got to the edging she got a little nervous until I showed her how to do it. Then she was off. This is her finished shawl for her Mom....

She did a spectacular job with it! Now she's doing another lace scarf, the Multnomah Shawl, and I'm not sure what else. She's just off and running! Melanie belongs to SCA which, per their website is described as...

"The SCA is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. Our "Known World" consists of 19 kingdoms, with over 30,000 members residing in countries around the world. Members, dressed in clothing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, attend events which feature tournaments, royal courts, feasts, dancing, various classes & workshops, and more.” - www.sca.org

In belonging to this organization, she also does a lot of other things that are fitting of those periods in time. She is an amazing calligrapher. She made a "Mothers Tree" for me done in calligraphy on parchment paper. It is truly a wonderful piece. If you have any questions as to what a Mother's Tree is, leave me a message in the comments and I will explain it further. Here is a picture of it...

The gold of the first letters is hard to see in the picture. This is ten centuries of women in my family beginning in 1733. Mother of...mother of..mother of..until it gets to me where it will stop as I have no children. Melanie has 2 children, Rachel and Bryan. Rachel is a chef/baker and Bryan just returned from the Army after serving 2 tours in Afghanistan. By day Melanie is also a librarian who works for one of the Prep Schools here in town. She is also the President of the Rio Rancho Astronomical Society. 

Lori is our newest member and a most talented knitter. She fit right into the group as if she had been there for 15 yrs too. She is sweet, funny, kind and I cannot imagine our group without her. Her 3 daughters Christy, Lisa, and Jamie are grown and she is now enjoying lots of traveling and the love of her grandchildren. Lori has been working on a Pat Werner jacket for a while that she just finished and it is absolutely stunning. I am trying to convince her to enter it into the State Fair in 2014. Its truly an art piece. This is the coat she just made...go check out the pattern. Its amazing! Lori has a marvelous sense of color and I think hers is better than the one on cover of the magazine on Pat's website. I should've gotten a pic of last week when we were at her house for Stitch Group.

Tonight we are meeting at Lisa's house and as always, I'm looking forward to it. Its much more relaxed than Tuesday night. I can wear my pajama's and slippers to Stitch Group if I wanted and no one would care or think twice about it. There is something magical about our little Monday Night Stitch Group. The one thing I love about this small group of women is pure, total acceptance for who you are, failures, faults and successes. We are all so different yet we are the same. We have families we love and care for, we all value and nurture our friendships and know how important it is to have this time with each other. I never experienced anything like it until I moved here. I feel so very fortunate to have these amazing women in my life. Each one of them. If I ever needed anything I know I could call them in the middle of the night and they would get up and come over and tell me it was no trouble, and they would mean it.

Thank you ladies, I never knew I was missing this in my life until I became a part of it! See you tonight!