MDSW 2012

I, like a lot of knitters and crocheters, am a dedicated user of Ravelry. I post in the forums quite frequently, and the group I spend the most time in is a tight knit - no pun intended - bunch of fiber lovers. So when one of us decided that we should have a get-together around Cinco de Mayo, and that said meetup should be in Maryland, it was sort of like fate. It just so happens that Cinco de Mayo is the same weekend as Maryland Sheep and Wool, and my birthday fell on the same weekend as well.

I drove from Nashville to Baltimore, making a pit stop in Virginia to spend the night at the house of another fantastic member of the group. While not the first time I'd met friends from Ravelry (I attend DragonCon every year and room with a few wonderful Ravelers who I love dearly), this time, it kind of felt like coming home. The people who came to the Cinco de Mayo festivities aren't the people I interact with the most frequently of my Ravelry friends, so it was slightly awkward on my part at first, but I'd gotten into a tiny fender bender (no damage) within 50 yards of my destination, and they greeted me with comforting hugs.

We had dinner that night, and explored Baltimore the next day, and by the end of Friday, it felt like they had always been my friends, more than just faceless usernames on some knitting website. But Saturday? Saturday was where the fun was. We headed out to the fairgrounds, and while I'd been to Stitches South and SAFF, a couple of the others had never been to a fiber festival, and MDSW is in a league of its own.
 
I petted some of the critters.

We saw the fluffiest bunny in existence.

And I both bought yarn and had yarn and fiber (and a bag!) given to me as unexpected birthday presents. I already have plans for some of it.

It was amazing. I got to spend days with these people who have seen me at my best and at my worst, and we were immersed in the thing that had brought us together to begin with. We dined, we drank or abstained, we knitted, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more. I never wanted to leave. But of course, all good things must come to an end.

So we packed up our things at the end of the weekend, and everyone went back to their daily lives. Except me. I journeyed further north, to New Jersey, to visit with another bunch of friends from the same group. It wasn't a weekend, so we didn't get to spend as much time together as I'd have liked, but we did hang out a bit and go out to dinner. I found out that they are just as wonderful in real life as they are on the internet, and I definitely want to go back when I can stay longer and everyone can get together for a longer period of time. Two of us who are nail polish addicted even finally - months after we'd first talked about it - got to combine our powers and do manicures to match (my hand is on the right, hers is on the left).

And a week after I left home, I got the chance to go to New York City for the first time, with a non-knitter friend acting as tour guide.

After my whirlwind tour of NYC, where I saw most of the major Manhattan sights in 8 hours, I headed back south the next day, with stops in Baltimore and Virginia for rest, and got home Saturday so that I could spend Mothers Day with my mother and grandmother.

I met so many amazing people during this trip, and I love them all. There are others I've already met, and many more who I want to meet, and each one of them is dear to me. Never let it be said that "internet friends" are not real friends, because they most certainly are.