Welcome to the Arcadia Knitting blog! What better way to kick things off than to talk about our blogger meet-up that we hosted on Monday, July 31st? On one of the hottest days of the year people showed up to meet the bloggers they read and meet their readers. New friends were made, old friends met face to face. We gossiped a little, ate and drank a little... and of course, we knit and crocheted, too!

Corrine from Lucky Penny Handmade brought some of her fabulous doggie knits (and some of her fabulous doggie models) to share with everyone. Franklin showed us a fantastic poetry mitten pattern in the latest issue of Piecework and also gifted us with our very own Franklin Habit signed original for the shop. Dee, Gail and Lynette - who collectively run the new pattern website The Island of Misfit Patterns - stopped by; so did Aidon, Christine, Lucia, Elisabeth, Angela, Mary Beth, Katy, Samantha, Marsha, Rachel, Esther, Julie, Macarena, Arissa, Lisa and lots more.

We also had our first sneak peek of new fall yarns:

Ultra Alpaca - by Berroco, Alpaca and wool, super soft, great quality,
215 yards, 5/sts per inch

Brushed Suri Alpaca - by Blue Sky Alpacas, Suri Alpaca, super soft, a
great deal, 142 yards, from 2.5 - 5 sts/per inch

Bel Air - by GGH Muench, Wool and nylon, super soft, 147 yards, 4 -
4.5 sts per inch. A very light weight yarn at a bigger gauge.

Plus some new Lorna's Shepherd Worsted. Super soft, too. Four hanks
make a baby blanket. It's washable!

We had snacks, we had prizes and everyone went home with a goody bag.

Elisabeth walked away with our grand prize for her most embarrassing tale of email woe. She won two skeins of Lorna's Shepherd Worsted in Bittersweet, a sparkly Skacel crochet hook, a signed copy of SnB Happy Hooker, a fabulous signed illustration by Franklin and a gift certificate to Arcadia. You can read Elisabeth's winning tale here.

Pictures from the event are coming. Got a great one from Monday night you want to share? Send us a copy and we'll post it.

Thanks to everyone that came out to our blogger meet-up! We hope to do it again sometime in the future. Want an invite to our next one? Make sure to sign up on our mailing list to get the details about this and future Arcadia events.

Our blog is born!