Stitch 'n' bitch

So for fun, I googled "Stitch Bitch." And what do I come up with but a bajillion sites about the Stitch and Bitch knitting clubs. Apparently, I am old and out of the loop. These groups are for knitters under 40 to get together and "stitch" in public. I've never really thought of knitting as stitching. It doesn't even look like sewing.

I was on page 17 before I even had a reference to cross-stitching (more on the porn sites later, or not).

There's also a vaguely interesting article about a female Frankenstein called Stitch Bitch: The Patchwork Girl. But I couldn't read that much of it. When I put that life behind me, I put it behind me for good.

So, why don't stitchers stitch publicly and in groups? Ages and ages ago, well probably some time around 1995, I had met some Angeleno stitchers online and had them over to my house. There were about 7-10 people who came and went, and we'd either gather to stitch or would go on shopping excursions together. What happened to all that? Oh, the sacrifices we make while pursuing letters to string after our names. . .

Part of the problem I suppose, for me anyway, was that I had to stop reading rctn. Too many off-topic posts. Too damn many posts period. Oh, for the days before AOL, when people read and followed netiquette rules. There were about 50 messages a week, and they were all on-topic and interesting, too. Now there are too many stitchers out there who spend their time talking about everything but stitching. It's too difficult for me to have what I consider a normal conversation with a regular person let alone a fundamentalist woman who homeschools and has no sense of irony, even if we have cross-stitch in common. Maybe this stuff is going on out there; maybe I'm too "in here."

I'd go to an EGA meeting, if I didn't have to go it alone--maybe. But which of three vaguely-local ones to attend: Pasadena? Long Beach? El Segundo? Women stitch at the LNS, but they're all about a hundred and have bad taste as far as I can tell from the projects they've chosen. The other LNSes are too far to go to to stitch for a couple of hours so I can be with people.

So for now, I will sit at home and work on battlestargalactica (not going too well) while I watch professional sports on tv. Oh, and plan another trip to Tulsa, OK.

Next up: a collection of cross-stitching trips you can take, and some brief reviews of the ones I've taken.