Becca's Blog

Don't faint or nothin'

... but I blogged.  Like a real post, where I had to string together more than a few sentences and used photos and everything. Just not here--it's over here. 

I visited Kristine and Adrienne and Wondermike at A Verb for Keeping Warm yesterday (they called out the Cupkates truck--how could I not?) and I got all civic boosterish (hence the post on the Berkeleyside blog).

Actually, a couple of months ago I saw via Twitter that some folks were starting up a local blog, and I thought "I'm as nosy and opinionated as the next Berkeleyite, so why not let my neighbors hear from me?" I haven't posted there often, but I'm hoping to do so more frequently.

Here are a few pics from Verb's holiday party yesterday, which I couldn't shoehorn into the Berkeleyside post.

 

 

This last image is from the studio of Mirto Golino, around the corner in the same building as Verb. I loved her stuff, and she was a blast to talk to. She showed me a hat she made from Verb yarn that was pretty pretty.

Using my powers for good.

I'm kind of excited because a couple of days ago I found out for sure that I'll be leading a knitting group once a week at a center for low-income women in my neighborhood. This will be the first time I've taught knitting in a formal setting, although I taught my niece, and ages ago I taught my best friend in college. I really didn't know what I was doing, though, and she was lefthanded. I didn't know from continental-style knitting back then.

I don't know exactly what will happen, what I'll end up teaching, or what supplies I might need help rustling up. I do think I'm going to hit up Knitty for permission to reuse of a couple of simple patterns, though.  I'll keep you posted!

Clarification on East Bay knit night.

A few people have expressed interest in the knit night I mentioned, so let me give some details--I should have perhaps been a bit more specific in yesterday's post. This group grew out of the Gay Bay group in Ravelry--it's been christened the EBLGBTSnB. You should pop in  to the Ravelry group and introduce yourself, and join the Yahoo group we set up for a calendar.

So far we've met on two consecutive Tuesdays, at Cafe Gratitude on Shattuck in Berkeley and at Village Grounds in Berkeley. We're still trying out different places, but the criteria are that it be in the East Bay and accessible via BART. We're on for this coming Tuesday, but I'm not sure of the location.

It's a very mellow group, and anyone nice will be welcome. That said, there are other knit nights in the 'hood that don't self-identify as queer, so there are plenty of groups to check out and find one that's sympatico. Off the top of my head, I can think of these:

• Thursday nights at Village Grounds, which is just an informal thing organized by Sarah, one of the co-owners. She's extremely nice, especially to knitters. I haven't stopped in on Thursday yet out of sheer laziness.
• The longtime Berkeley stitch n' bitch meets on Wednesday nights at Caffe Trieste on San Pablo, starting at 6, I think. I've been to this a couple of times.
• Knit-One-One's regular knit-outs at Rudy's and Sweet Adeline's in Emeryville and South Berkeley.
• East Bay Knitters meets the first & third Mondays of the month at K2TOG, 1230 Solano (between Evelyn & Talbot) in Albany. There is a small charge for using the space that is shared among the attendees.
  
• Stash at the top of Solano has a knit night on Wednesdays.
  

Finally, RuTemple did something brilliant: She has been Google-mapping all the knit-outs people have posted to the Bay Area meetups forum on Ravelry.  Even if you're not on Ravelry, you can see the map here.