Social Knitworking

After a bit of a hiatus, and yes, I realize a bit is being generous, we met this past weekend at Double Shots on Chestnut Street to podcast. As sometimes happens getting into the city, the traffic was slow, and our arrivals were scattered. Andrea arrived first and secured us a seat at the round table in the back, but as soon as the couches cleared off we moved over, got comfortable, and didn’t get a chance to record until several hours later.

In case we haven’t ever reviewed Double Shots, and I don’t think we have although we’ve met there several times, I’ll do that first.

It’s full name is Double Shots Espresso Bar, and it’s located at 211 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19106. It’s website just lists it’s numbers and hours, and says that a full site is coming soon. They offer a fairly good selection of coffee and tea drinks, sandwiches, and pastries, and have seating and free internet access, once you obtain the password at the counter, and a couple PCs in one corner. They have a few board games available, although we know for a fact that the piece for Ms Scarlett is missing because we found a little piece of paper labeled with her name on the floor as we were knitting. The music is a little loud when you sit under the speakers, so it will be interesting to see if we were able to make ourselves heard over it during the podcast.

Knitting took place, as usual, Andrea was working on her Sock Yarn Blankie, Joanna was working on her Undulating Rib Socks (which had a stitch jump off the needle without her knowing until she was working on them in the dark later that night). Connie was working on Kai-Mai and Corona, and I was working on Mira, a shawl I’m in the process of designing as I knit. I don’t remember if any of us took any pictures of anything we were working on.

When it got to be close to time for my second parking meter to run out, we recorded our podcast, which will be posted as soon as the appropriate editing has taken place. We talked about back to school, knitting, and who knows what else, with our unpredictable tangents. You’ll have to listen to find out!

After the podcast, Andrea headed off to see a comedy show, while the remaining three of us used up the remaining time on our parking meter and discussed what to do for the rest of the evening. We decided to head to Northern Liberties for free parking, dinner, and more knitting.

Since it is August, Joanna said it was time for her monthly seafood fix, and we headed to Koi for sushi. It was still early for dinner in the city on a Saturday night, so we were able to get a parking spot right in front of the restaurant and were seated right away.

Koi doesn’t have a website th at I could find easily just by googling it, but it is located at 604 North 2nd Street Philadelphia, PA 19123.  The various review sites state that it serves Japanese, Korean, and sushi .  It’s open for lunch and dinner, and offers take-out and delivery.  It is BYOB, and a few patrons walked in after us with cans of PBR.  Reservations are recommended, but like I said, we walked in and were seated right away.

I ordered edamame as an appetizer as we tried to decide what we were going to have from the sushi menu.  Joanna decided on the Salmon Skin roll and Vegetable Tempura roll, Connie also had the Vegetable Tempura roll and a California roll, and I ordered a Spider Roll because Connie had never tried one, and a platter with Spicy Tuna roll, Yellowtail with scallions, and a Philly roll.  The waitress kept our water glasses full and we had Mochi for dessert.  Everyone was pleased with their dishes, and after we finished eating we were full enough to decide that a walk up and back Second Street was in order.

At some point during our walk, our inner tourists came out to play.  We were taking photographs all the way up and back.  Hopefully Connie and Jo will post some of their pictures, since mine are on my phone and not yet postable. 

We decided we needed to eat at Bar Ferdinand again, and then realized that we needed to eat at most of the places along Second, including in the Piazza.  By the time we made it back to my car, we were ready for more knitting and a bathroom break and headed over to Higher Grounds, our regular spot over on Third. 

However, we lost track of time, and HG was closing up for the evening, so Jo and Connie got iced tea and we headed down to the community park on Third and Wildey.  We took more pictures, talked about gardening in the community garden next to the park, and maybe hosting a KIP there, and settled down on the stage to knit for a while to enjoy the evening.  There was some great people watching, and it was here knitting in the dark that Joanna realized she had dropped a stitch in her sock.  And then, when we finally found a locking stitch marker to hold it, realized that she might have forgotten to change her needle size as well.  (I found out the next day that she ended up frogging back to fix both). 

I dropped them off at the station on Second, and headed back down 95, and was home before 10.

More pictures from our wanderings