Friends

We travelled to Knoxville yesterday for the monthly Freestyle Meeting, this one at Margi's house.  Jill and I were  in charge of the food, and we planned a tea for our friends.  I made sandwiches (egg salad, carrot-ginger, and pickled okra pinwheels), and Jill brought smoked salmon with cucumber.  I made the scones, and Jill made the teacake (chocolate!) and shortbread and little pastry cups of lemon curd (homemade) with raspberries and cream.  Jill also brought her mother's teacups, a dozen of variously patterned cups and saucers that looked as if they had come straight from an elaborately carved Victorian cupboard.

Margi's house is such a neat place— a log cabin by the lake.  She has furnished it with pieces she has collected, lovely old oak for the most part, and as she is a weaver, some of her work is there.

But the nicest part of the day was not the food or china or setting, but the ten of us gathered under the beams of the living room.  We all have a common interest in some form of fiber, and during Show 'N Tell we share our latest creations to the admiring oohs and aahs of the group.  How talented each of us is, but in our own way.  The inspiration flies back and forth as ideas are laid out and expanded.  I always come home and immediately set to work on some project or another.  This time I think I will take up the crocheted scarves that I had set aside when the weather got so unbearably hot and sticky— Christmas will be here before I even realize it!  I will post photos when I get them a little farther along the way.

I think that special nurturing ability to inspire one another to try new things is one of the most admirable qualities of the friends I have.