In addition to being a place to write about my artistic endeavors and other things, one of the perks of blogging is making many new friends “in the virtual world” and on occassion I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of these friends in person.

This week provided me with a triple blogger encounter. First up, meeting up with Lolly, who was in town for a conference. (It turned out that her conference hotel was right next door to my current project site.) Lolly was one of the first bloggers that I started reading as I was contemplating joining the blog world so I was thrilled to hear that she was coming to Chicago & that our schedules allowed us to meet-up. On Sunday evening we met up for dinner – we went to one of my favorite places, Reza’s Restaurant, for a delicious spread of Persian food. After dinner we walked back through the city and I played a bit of tour guide, pointing out buildings & interesting facts along the way. What’s a knitter meet-up without knitting? We ended our evening working sitting, knitting & chatting. Lolly was working on the beautiful Malabrigo sweater and I also got to see the beautiful purple shawl that accompanied her on her recent Peru adventures. It was a lovely evening of conversation and friendship – because of blogging, this felt like catching up with an old friend rather than meeting one for the first time.

As the week progressed we made plans to visit The Field Museum on Friday morning – my work schedule allowed me to take the day off which meant I had a chance to be a tourist in my own town. What started as one plan for the morning turned into a full day of fun! The weather was ideal for walking along the lakefront to the museum, so Lolly & I set out for the museum with Nova, Paige & Cynthia (fellow conference attendees).

Along the way we had fun seeing the current Chicago public art installation, Cool Globes.

Right in front of the Field was the perfect globe for the knitters among us – Adjust the Thermostat by Lindsay Obermeyer – a globe that had been covered in a handknit sweater.

(all pictures here)

We spent several hours wandering through the exhibit halls – it had been several years since I had been the museum so it was great to see it again, it is truly a museum that never fails to be enjoyable.

My favorite exhibit of this visit was Plant Portraits: The California Legacy of A. R. Valentien – I was unfamiliar with this artist but the combination of botanical prints & a focus on California was a great combination for me.

Before long it was time to head back to the hotel – while everyone was in their afternoon sessions I passed the time with an iced coffee, a new magazine and some knitting (of course). After their afternoon conference sessions wrapped up, several of us piled into a cab for a bit of local yarn – a trip to Loopy Yarns. The collective purchases were minimal – mostly some magazines, a few supplies and some sock yarn.

The evening included a reception at Millennium Park. When that was over, it was time for more knitting. Lolly, Nova & I sat in the hotel lobby to knit and were soon joined by Rebecca. What started out as “oh, just a quick bit of knitting before calling it an evening” turned into several hours of knitting and great conversation. As we called it an evening we were able to get a quick picture of all of us with our projects.

Thanks girls for letting me hang out with you for the day – what a fun way to start off a holiday weekend!