#knit night

[nakedcrafts]

Off to knit night! 🧶

[raspberryconverse]

At virtual knit night and someone just said, “I just got a meeting request for after 5 and I’m trying to figure out a professional way to say, ‘The new season of Heartstopper drops tomorrow and I will be watching it after I’m done for the day.’”

[gornwen]

Day to Day Polyamory: Being Out & Sweater Knitting

Perhaps the best thing about being out is being able to talk about the little things, the aspirational things. It's things like being able to show a friend a photo a sweater I'm hoping to knit for Princess and have her insist that it would look super cute on her. And when I say I'd love to be able to steal it back and have an extra oversized sweater for me, her response is only that I need to make it. Being out means being able to have these moments, and they really are what builds friendships and relationships.

Hopefully sweater updates to follow. Depends on if I'm test knitting it or not. Fingers crossed.

[raspberryconverse]

Gen Z knitter #1: How long have you been knitting?

Me: 19 years. My grandma taught me over Thanksgiving 2004.

#1: That's so crazy that you remember that

Me: I remember it was my sophomore year of college. I'm old.

Gen Z knitter #2: *smiles and nods*

[raspberryconverse]

Me: I don't have any friends here. I'm trying to make friends with the Gen Z knitters [at the LYS I've been going to their open knit nights] Spouse: Aww, they're babies. Me: They are. They're all like 24, 25. I'm like 15 years older than them. Spouse: It's just like you and your older knitting friends only you're the old one now. Me: Shit, you're right. Except my older knitting friends are all at least 20 years older than me. Spouse: It's still the same. You're the old one now.

[sarahdawnsdesigns]

Join me Feb 20th for a Patreon-Exclusive Virtual Stitch Night! I promise, I don't bite!

Bring your crafting, your creative work, or even just tune in and chatter!

Can't make the time slot? That's ok, replays go up on Patreon, as well!

[raspberryconverse]

So as I've cried about mentioned, I've been struggling with not having friends since moving to Chicago from Milwaukee. I do a virtual knit night with my LYS, but, well, it's virtual. And I've been kinda making friends with the Gen Z knitters at another shop's knit night, but I think they might think since I'm like 15 years older, I might not want to hang out outside of knit night.

Side note: the tattoo artist one told me it was so good to see me when I got there tonight 🥰

Anyway, there's another gal that started coming who recently moved here with her partner from Vancouver (she's originally from Toronto, which I totally clocked with her accent: it's the house, out and of course about that always gives it away) and she doesn't have a lot of friends here either. She walks the same direction I do when we leave the shop and both last time and tonight we walked the block or two together chatting.

Y'all, I am so proud of myself.

Tonight I asked her how she's liking Chicago because she's always raving about how much more she likes it than Vancouver. She said she's really glad she moved here. I mentioned I'm also glad to be back in Chicago too (I went to college here), but I need to get out more. Spouse isn't very social, so they are content staying home, which makes things hard for me because while I'm an introvert, I do like to hang out. So I asked her if she'd want to hang out sometime. And we exchanged numbers!

I made a friend, you guys! (FYI, I know some people aren't fond of "you guys" because it seems gendered, but it's really a Midwest colloquialism and even my nonbinary spouse uses it and doesn't find it gendered, so that's what I'm going with) My therapist is going to be so proud of me!

[raspberryconverse]

I'm doing virtual knit night with the Karens (the two who are always there are both named Karen), my friends from back home in Wisconsin. They're not your typical Karens, but they are both very well off and about 60. One is a construction director at the big healthcare system in the area and the other is retired from a major pharmaceutical company (once you put in a certain number of years you're eligible for retirement).

I was telling them about our plumbing woes and how Spouse is really upset we can't afford to rearrange the kitchen right now (it'd require moving walls for it to be what they want to do). And when I'm telling the Karens about this, they're all, "You should do it! It'd be a good time to do it."

"We'd have to get new cabinets though."

"Well, yeah. But you might as well!"

Oh, Karens. Pharma Karen redid her kitchen because it was "off center." Healthcare Karen was debating several years ago whether she should go on a $4000 Disney cruise with her sister and nephews.

Yeah, we barely can afford this plumbing repair (repiping the kitchen sink drain all the way to the basement). We definitely don't have several grand to buy new countertops and cabinets. Even if we get them from the ReStore or Reuse Depot like we're planning on doing (people give away nice shit, which I'm sure Pharma Karen's contractors did when she redid her kitchen), it's still going to be a lot of money. We're not even buying a new faucet even though Spouse hates our current one.

I love these ladies. They threw us a wedding shower and were super generous with their wedding gifts. They were there for me when my mom died unexpectedly when we were on a girls' knitting trip. But they are so out of touch with what it's like to be starting out in your careers. It's been decades for them. They can't seem to understand what it's like and it's kinda frustrating.