Well, I hosted my first Stitch & Bitch last week to teach several people how to knit. Some had knit when they were kids (or at least in their younger days), and some were completely new to knitting. We met at 4 pm down at Creative Hands in Belmont (my LYS). Everyone picked out a big ball of yarn to practice with or to turn into a scarf. After we ate a scrumptious meal (more on that below), we started the knitting session with a spilled glass of wine. After the clean up on Aisle 1, we learned the knit stitch and then after about 6 rows, we worked in the purl stitch.

Karen was only there to learn vicariously so that she can help her daughter with her knitting when they return to Japan at the end of the month. The best part of the evening was the group effort to make the gazpacho Bloody Marys and the curried turkey salad. Although, Karen led the charge to make the Bloody Mary's. We still had part of the pitcher left this weekend!

Monica sent me a note the next day saying she
stayed up until midnight knitting furiously after she left my house that night. Hopefully out of the 6 new knitters, the bug will bite a few of them! I have been knitting on a pair of socks recently with one of them completed and the other one in the works. One of the best parts of the evening was a tour of my closet so we could share some finished pieces.

Note: I have moved the knitting particular blog entries to a separate blog: Sonya L. Sigler. 

I had a girls' weekend in Napa this past weekend and I can't recommend it highly enough. I went with three other friends (moms) and we went up mid-morning on Saturday and came back Sunday afternoon. A limo (Amy's wonderful idea) met us about a half hour after we arrived and we spent the afternoon visiting several wineries: the Guilliams, Keenan, Frank, and V. Sattui wineries. We spent a majority of our time at the Guilliam's with Shawn and John who are friends and who make fabulous wine - you can only get their wine from the winery, at a handful of restaurants around the Bay Area, or at Beltramo's or K&L in Menlo Park. We had an incredible dinner at Go Fish in St. Helena's. One of the dishes we tried was the fresh Caprese salad, for which they grow their own tomatoes and make their own mozzarella cheese. Our dinner lasted about 2 hours with all the yakking and sampling we did in a beautiful setting outside on the back patio. Sunday we took it easy and went shopping at the outlets in Napa and then had lunch at the diner next to the Oxbow Market (like the San Francisco Ferry Building shops) in downtown Napa. All in all it was a very relaxing weekend with adults!