Last night’s South Bay Stampers meeting was nice, though there were only two people there: Khris, the organizer, and myself. It would have been nice if more people had attended, but I didn’t mind a quiet evening of playing with stamp supplies.

I did bring my wrapped postcards to the meeting, though I wasn’t as interested as working on them. The finished pieces didn’t really turn out as well as I’d hoped, but I got to experiment with different inks and embossing powders, as well as try out chalks for the first time. I think I want to buy some chalks of my own sometime, though the ones I want aren’t inexpensive. Here are the cards though:

Khris and I ended up talking more about trying to get people involved in and attending craft groups, and how we’ve both found it to be somewhat difficult. We have all sorts of theories on it, but nothing that stands out as the most accurate. A new suggestion I had was that perhaps it’s a bit intimidating to go to a new group, where you don’t know anyone and are going to work on projects in front of the other members. I can definitely understand this, having had the same concerns when I first attended a South Bay Craft Group meeting, but I soon found that the attendees were all pretty laidback and it was definitely a relaxing environment. Purely social, with a bit of educational curiosity mixed in, and not a bit of pressure to follow along or work on anything in particular.

I’m not sure what it’ll take to crack this problem, but I have a feeling that word of mouth will have a role. We’ve definitely had a number of evenings when friends of regular members appear and then begin to become regulars themselves. And the social crafting activities I’ve participated in outside of these meetings, though with people I’ve met at them, seem to happen a lot more easily, since there’s some familiarity and a social network already established.

Related to this, my Saturday afternoon was spent with Amytha, who founded the South Bay Craft Group. After letting her rummage through my excess craft supplies, we drove up to parts of Los Altos and Palo Alto to stop by a few estate sales. I think it was my first time attending an estate sale, and there’s definitely a creepy, morbid sort of air to the idea of walking through the home of someone who has died and poking through their belongings, with the aim to take some home with you. Not disturbing enough to keep me from going to others, but still kind of sad.

Amytha bought a few things, including a few vintage, women’s hats (40s/50s era?), and then we headed over to the Los Altos Library to take part in a t-shirt alteration workshop organized by Sarah, the teen librarian there. It was inspired by the book Generation T and though it was geared towards teens, it was fun. I ended up using an old sweater, embroidery floss, and a few buttons to make a three-eyed monster plush toy. It was hard to embroider through knitted material, and we didn’t have any stuffing on hand, but I made do with what I had and I like how it turned out:

A few weeks ago, I met up with a friend to go to a local craft fair, and she purchased a wonderful, knitted nautilus, based on this Knitty.com pattern. It was really well done and looked pretty cute, and it got me thinking about my attitude towards knitting.

For awhile now, I’ve not really thought too highly of knitting, at least as a craft that I could personally do. I don’t have anything against knitting (or crocheting) in and of itself, but the various examples of knitting’s end result have just never been appealing to me, either aesthetically or practically speaking. Perhaps it’s due to memories of hideously colored afghans and horribly itchy sweaters from my childhood, but none of what I saw ever made me want to pick up a pair of needles and make my own.

After seeing the nautilus and remembering photos of knitted organs though, I felt like I had found an area of knitting that is more my style. Forget toilet paper cozies and foofy scarves, I want to make some guts and fossils! I figured that I could at least try my hand at knitting, and if I really didn’t like it, I could just move on to something else.

So, this afternoon I went to Beverly’s to look for supplies. I found a copy of Stitch ‘N Bitch, which has pretty good reviews online, and then picked out a few basic items, including needles and a cheap skein of fairly soft yarn.

After having spent a few hours reading through the book and trying to cast on and knit a bit, I can definitely say that knitting is harder than I thought. Or at least it takes a different sort of mindset than what I’m used to with embroidery or making cards. It’s funny because I was just reading Kristin Nicholas’ post about how some knitters seem to have a hang-up about embroidering; I seem to have the opposite problem!

Anyway, I got a bit frustrated earlier, after my stitches kept getting too tight and the book didn’t explain the casting on technique that would help this. I won’t give up just yet though, especially with how many web sites there seem to be about knitting. I’ll keep trying, and would appreciate any sort of tips or tricks from the experienced knitters out there!