There were nine of of us

yesterday. Until now the knitting group at the library has had seven or eight. It is about the right number for the tiny space which is made available.
We have half the meeting room. A book group has the other half. There is a concertina like "door/wall" between us.
There were four people at the bookgroup. When the knitter opposite me went into their half to make a cup of tea she reported that they were talking about their grandchildren rather than the book - and one of them was also knitting.
We can squeeze nine or perhaps ten into the space available. Two people are knitting "beanies" - one a complicated cabled affair, the other a quick-knit one for her husband. Two people are working on pullovers. Two more are working on socks. Like another member of the group I have taken my "small" project, fingerless gloves for a friend. I am half way through the first one.
Sitting next to me is someone about to start on a shawl. She needs to learn something new to her in order to cast on.
The knitter on her other side and I work between us. We tell and show her what to do. We get her to do it. Then we make her undo it and do it again. When she has done that she begins the rest of it. Like all knitting it grows rather slowly but the result has been a neat, invisible beginning. "Just the way I wanted it."
Later in the afternoon another technique is taught at the other end of the table and a discussion is carried on about the wisdom of doing one thing or the other. Someone goes out to the shelves and comes back with a book that illustrates her point.
As this is going on a male member of the library staff comes in to get something from the cupboard. He stops for a moment and watches our expert sock knitter.
"I don't know how you do that," he tells her. She offers a lesson and he just shakes his head. "I didn't know knitting was so complicated or that you had to learn such a lot."
Yes there is a lot to learn. The library is a good place for such learning. Libraries are about far more than books.