THE DAILY CHUM

This week I’m taking a break from my party planning, because last week I thought of a great idea for the subject I was writing on, which was an interview, which I’ll hopefully have for you sometime this week. I still wanted to write something this week, so I decided to make sure that you all have the tools to find the fiber events in your area.

If you are reading this from Earth, and the chances are that you are, there is likely a fiber event within 4 hours from where you are at some point in the next year. The question remains, where do you find out about it? That’s simple. Knitter’s Review. Every Year Knitter’s Review puts out a list of large, fiber-filled events puts them all into one convenient place. The List is long, but not too hard to navigate. I use the search feature in my browser (CTRL + F in Firefox ) to search for my two letter state code, or if you are outside the US, type the name of your country If you know about when an event is happening, but have no other clue about what or where it is, well the list is organized chronologically so you can scroll down the list to the right time. The list is not the be all and end all of all fiber events, but it is so comprehensive, it even lists the various knit cruises coming up over the next few weeks, that failing to check it out would be a bad idea.

I did say that the Knitter’s Review list is not all encompassing, in fact that only put the really big events on there, and over the course of a year there are bound to be many smaller events like Knit Outs and Stitch and Pitches. If you have one, your local knitter’s, crocheter’s, spinner’s, and/or, weaver’s guilds is a great place to start, as they tend to be quite tuned in to the local fiber scene. There are also various local email lists over at MSN and yahoo groups (there was a great purge during the Stitch and Bitch/Sew Fast Sew Easy debacle, but many groups have bounced back since then). Meetup .com is another way to get in touch with the knitters in your area, I personally don’t like it as much as Yahoo groups, but it seems to work for the knitters in New York. Some local groups are so well established that they’ve decided to carve out their own little corner of the web, I’m looking at you, Chicago, and of course, if you want to find a Stitch and Bitch group in your area, the Chicago group maintains their own list of knitting groups. Finally, and I cannot believe I nearly forgot it, there’s Ravelry. I’m sure that if you’re on Ravelry you’ve noticed the groups tab at the top. There are groups for a lot of general locations all over the world as well as for individual groups. Any of these local groups can key you into events happening in your area.
If you go through all of my suggestions and can’t find any events to go to in your area, well, either you’re in space (which is cool) where no one can hear you knit, or it might be time to create your own event, which we will get back to next week.

Erin is…probably in Minnesota somewhere. She adorns the land of 10,000 lakes yarn stores with her glorious presence and profound geekiness. Erin knits, when she is not studying, singing herself hoarse, and reading whatever comes into her notice. Erin also enjoys speaking in the third person, although she does not do so on her blog.

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