Last night I went to a knitting café for the first time. I had walked by the store the week before and had seen their sign that read „Knitting Café | Mondays 5pm – 8pm“ (well, ok, it said that in Swedish). I obviously didn’t happen to have my yarn and needles with me, plus I was on the way somewhere else. But I hoped I’d remember until this week – and I actually did!?

Ironically, the „project“ (= yarn, needle and instructions for a sweater jacket, no actual work started yet) I took with me was a birthday present that Peter had gotten me from that place. Two and a half years ago, ehem. It wasn’t even the same owner anymore, so technically I didn’t have to tell her that story and thus embarrass myself … oh well.

There were four of us (including the shop owner), and although I’m afraid I was too busy counting in the beginning to be social and join in the conversation, it was nice. There were even sandwiches, and one of the ladies had brought cake since it was her birthday. When I joked that I had picked the right night to show up, I was informed that last week, another participant (who wasn’t there yesterday), had sort of „kidnapped“ them to her own home where she had prepared an entire dinner for the group. I am liking this already.

I was also relieved to find that these wonderful ladies weren’t judging me for being an amateur who has to look down at her project the whole time to see what she’s doing. Also, I am slow. I mean, I didn’t seriously worry about not being allowed to „play with the pros“ if I wasn’t on their level. I guess the competitive part of me kind of did worry exactly about that, though. Frowns and eye-rolling. Luckily, that part of me is just paranoid, and was obviously proven wrong.

Oh yeah: Between all the chatter, coffee, sandwiches and cake, I did get started on that sweater jacket.

This is what I am hoping it will look like:

Here are the instructions, in case you want to beat me to it:

http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/us/pattern.php?id=3676&lang=us (you can change the language on the page)

A great site with lots of free patterns, by the way.

Does this make you sad because there are no knitting café near you? Well, how about starting your own? That’s one thing that struck me last night: I didn’t technically have to wait for this to happen to me. I could have done that myself. You know, invite a bunch of your friends, everybody brings what they want to work on, you take turns with the snacks, … Simple.

And if you want to go pro: Decorate according to the theme, like in Pyssla Duka Bjud.