5 years Stitch 'n Bitch Fryslan

Yesterday, we celebrated the 5th anniversary of our local Stitch 'n Bitch group. The preparations started a few months ago with an inventory of ideas, and the organizing committee got to work with all that input, planning the big surprise for all of us.
We were first invited to knit, crochet or otherwise craft cool head gear. No party without hats!

This is our Frisian geisha Marijke, who unfortunately did not win the prize for best head dress. That went to blogless Gretha with a beautiful summery hat with butterflies on it. I have no good pictures, hopefully I can put up a link to better ones soon!
We started the party with some Prosecco, of course in suitable glasses...

There were pictures to look at (and take home) of our yarnbombing event earlier this year...

And then after depositing our swap yarn for later on that evening in the big box, and writing down our estimates for the 'Guess the weight' competition, we got stuck into the food. Café Wouters had put up a great spread of salads, hot food and fresh crunchy bread, yum yum! Then the first prize was announced, and guess what: I won!

I was 1 gram out... ;) So this jar with 85 grams of luscious sock yarn went home with me. Of course, the other party-goers also got a yarn with a small skein of sock yarn, as a consolation prize...
It didn't stop there... After filling our bellies, we had a quiz. A few weeks ago we all filled in a questionnaire and we had to guess who had written down which statement that was read out. It was quite difficult! I almost had my own statement wrong too ;) And guess what, I won again (and no, I was not on the organizing committee...)! A lovely skein of handspun merino by Annita Wilschut, and a pattern for a cuddly mouse to make from the yarn. Thanks Annita (blog currently offline, unfortunately)! The runners-up also got some great prizes.
And it didn't end there... After catching our breath, we were all handed a cool pink Phildar bag to put our goodies in.  And a bag with knitting magazines and a few more balls of yarn. We felt so spoilt!
It was time to go back downstairs and start our workshops. Me and Monique were doing two workshops; she did a lace-knitting workshop and I tought a group of hard-working knitters how to knit socks toe-up. It was great fun! And the chocolates we got as a thank-you were very much appreciated. Yum!

And Oprah just kept on handing out presents... Another big bag was handed out, filled to the brim with yarn, notions, soap, Frisian milk and more and more magazines. Amazing how generous the yarn companies and other businesses were!
When it was time to get a good glass of wine, we had our yarn lottery swap. I ended up with a lovely skein of Meilenweit sock yarn and roving for spinning. Spoilt, I tell you!

This morning, I decided to put out all the gifts and photograph them. It took two photos...
One for the yarn:

From the left bottom to the right top...:
Lana Grossa Meilenweit Wave
Online Supersocke
Scheepjes Invicta Coloris
Fortissima Socka Teddy
Markoma Yasmina (3x)
Mini-ball Zpaghetti
Mini-ball Fortissima Socka Mexiko Color
Mini-ball Opal
100% merino homespun by Annita Wilschut
Feather yarn
't Ryahuis Feltro
Austermann Tweed
Unknown brown yarn from Knitted Knots
Katia Paper
Roving Wollfabrik
85 grams various sock yarn
Soap and Frisian (coffee) milk

And one for the magazines:

Do you see that selection of vouchers? There will be some serious shopping going on soon... ;)

All in all, we had a GREAT evening. Getting everything home on the bike was quite a challenge, haha... A big thank you to:
- Our own Oprah, Herma
- Our sock knitter extraordinaire and yarnbombing guerrilla leader, Aal
- Our boho queen of the red cable sweaters (don't ask), Marieke

We will remember this evening for a long time! Every stitch I knit with the yarn I got and reading all those magazines will be a great memory!