Grand, Indeed.

Friends. I have been maintaining dwellings here at WillKnitForFood for almost two years. I started posting my projects as a way to chronicle my own creative attempts; over the course of time, it's turned into a really neat way to "interact" with other crafty bloggers. We comment, we send little notes; we share each other's awesomeness. We don't have to leave home to drop-in for a visit; the world is at our fingertips! The internet is cool like that. Sometimes, it even helps us find things and people in our own region of the world. 

Like a lot of home sewers, I follow The Sew Weekly. At the beginning of 2012, Mena opened her doors to anyone willing to walk through them. I- was not, willing, that is, but I watched, from afar as all the new contributors introduced themselves. I added a lot of blogs to my RSS feed that first week in January. Among those I added was Chicago blogger Meg the Grand. Megan's skills are mind-boggling amazing; look at the things she's capable of here, here, here, here, here... the list goes on and on. In short, Meg's blog is completely inspiring. After a series of communications, we made arrangements to meet-up. I had seen these things go down on blogs before, but I had never ventured from behind the keyboard to make contact. To say I was nervous is an understatement. I decided the best way to assure a successful first meeting was to bribe, er... bring her a present. 

My nerves and fears were for naught.  Megan is as splendidly sweet as she is talented! To start our afternoon, we met at Windy Knitty. It was both our first time in the shop, and it left a fantastic first impression. The staff working that day (check out Brent's blog), chatted us up and helped by climbing cubbies to grab skeins of yarn. We both left with more yarn than we came in with and plan on going back soon and often. After leaving Windy Knitty, we made our way to Sifu Design Studio. It was our first experience in this yarn shop also. Sadly, we weren't excited about the time we spent there. We weren't greeted when we came in, we were ignored while we browsed the haphazardly scattered inventory at the front of the store; there was a pretty lively knitting group working away in the rear of the shop making it difficult for us to maneuver into that area, and nobody seemed to notice when we headed for the door empty handed. We couldn't end our yarny pursuits on that note, so we made our way down to Sister Arts Studio in Lincoln Park. SIS was wonderful. Donna, the shop owner, graciously and effortlessly juggled a party of tweens while she helped us around the store. I came home with a bunch of yarn Sunday. I also came home with this incredible knit fabric; a gift from Megan. (I told you she was awesome!).  

Thank you, internet, for introducing me to my new friend. I have a feeling this meet-up was the first of many (we may have already squeezed in a second trip to SIS knit night. )