Today, we had planned a big meet of the Nederlandse Karma Swap Group, and during the last week, everybody really started looking forward to it.
At 7.15 I already left home to pick up Naomi, because we had agreed to be in Renswoude at around 9, to arrange everything. We were nicely on time, and Marianne was there too. The location looked good, even thought there were lots of little things lying around (understandable, since it was sort of a living room), because of which we couldn’t really decorate it easily for our own purposes. There were lots of big chairs, which turned out to be a real plus.
We decorated the room with balloons and such, decided what would go where, and started making coffee and tea. Soon, the first people started to arrive: Jojanneke and Nelleke. Jojanneke would help us as the Lottery Lady, by receiving and tagging the packages, while we would welcome the people and show them around.
At half past ten, the party really started, and soon the room was filled with chatting and knitting women. It was a real treat to see eachother again! Fortunately the room had good acoustics, and you didn’t have to raise your voice to be heard. We drank coffee and tea, knitted, and some more people arrived, and then it was already time for lunch!
Everybody was supposed to bring something for lunch, dinner or snacking, and there was an abundance of food. Tien had been baking pancakes all night last night, and there was salad, quiche and other delicious food. After lunch it was finally time for the Birthday Swap. All the participants had made beautiful presents for their partners, containing (minimum) a “wool cake”, a hat and a birthday wish. It was great to see how creative people had been with this! We saw some awesome packages, and after the exchange (which we had done in smaller groups) we admired all the goodness other people had received.
We took a small break, and then we went outside to make a group photo. Not everybody was there, but most of us are. It’s really a happy, colourful group (everybody is wearing the hat they got in the swap), even though the wheather was grey and gloomy. After the photograph, there was a lot of swapping going on, as well as Wollmeise dealing (Rachel brought a bin full of skeins she wanted to sell) and chatting. I bought some pretty Wollmeise Twin from Rachel, and some Wollmeise DK from Trude.
Very soon it was time for the lottery! We had asked everybody to bring a nicely wrapped present for the lottery, and we had almost enough stuff for two full rounds. Some very nice stuff was unwrapped, and if you got something that wasn’t entirely to your taste, you could just swap it with somebody else.
The afternoon was almost over, and we started preparing dinner. Rachel’s crockpot had been cooking split pea soup all day, and Giny’s was cooking chili. I want a crockpot too, they’re really convenient! We ate and then went back to coffee and tea. Some people started leaving, because they had a long trip ahead of them. We stayed for a while longer with a group of about 8, and once the last people had gone, Marianne, Naomi and I started cleaning up, and of course we started evaluating as well. At around ten we left, and after bringing Naomi home, I came home at about half past twelve. This was an awesome day!
