A group of women get together one Saturday per month to do some cross stitching and other hand crafts. In the photo above some of the ladies show off projects they are either working on or recently finished.

For the last year and a half or so, a group of women have gotten together once a month to visit, work, enjoy some snacks and pursue their hobbies, which often leaves them in stitches by the time they are done.

Literally, in stitches.

“We started doing this back when Welcome Stitchery came to town,” says organizer and leader Linda Bakken. “Some ladies from Rochester came to the Welcome Stitchery grand opening, and they asked if I knew of anywhere they could come and do some cross stitching while they were here visiting the store.”

Bakken found them a most unusual spot – the community room at Patton Funeral Home.

“I had used it before for a gathering,” Bakken says. “So I asked if it would be available and they said yes. It is fabulous and perfect for us to use for this.”

They meet once a month, on the second Saturday of the month, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“Our backup location, in case the community room is needed for something else on that day (like a funeral), is the basement of the Faith Lutheran Brethren Church across the street,” Bakken explains. “In the last year and a half we have only needed to move there once.”

The group is called “Stitch in BE” and there is no membership fee to join. It is open to anyone who is interested in cross stitch ­- or crochet, knitting, English paper piercing, diamond dots or any type of hand work.

“We have people coming from as much as four hours away,” Bakken says. “They come from the local area towns and from Rochester, Minneapolis, Mankato, Worthington and several cities in Iowa.”

A big part of each gathering is the “Show and Tell” time, Bakken says. Everyone shows what they have recently completed, or what they are working on, or what pattern they just purchased.

“We also have give and take tables,” Bakken explains. “It is where people bring items they are not going to use, and others can take them home.”

Her favorite part, Bakken says, is all the conversation.

“It is so fun to hear all the excited chatter as I walk around,” she says. “And also, the snacks are always important, too,” she adds with a smile.

Bakken stresses that all are welcome to come and join them, even ones who want to learn how to do cross stitch.

“We have some mother/daughters coming, some sisters, and at our March gathering we had a grandmother/granddaughter come, with the granddaughter wanting to learn how to cross stitch,” Bakken says.

Also at the March gathering, on Saturday, March 11, Blue Earth resident Lenne Holland was there for the first time.

“I was told about this and wanted to come, and I finally got around to it,” Holland said. “They were right, it is really great and so much fun.”

The group generally has between 15 and 20 members show up each month. Last month, in February, there were 22 there. In March it was down a bit.

There have been over 80 people sign in to the group’s Facebook page @StitchinBE. They are hoping more people will hear about it and show up.

“We are also doing YouTube videos, also under the name Stitch in BE,” Bakken says. “We post one after every one of our monthly meetings.”

As far as the name of the group goes, well, it does mean that they get together to “stitch in Blue Earth (BE).” But there is another somewhat hidden meaning.

If you say it rather quickly it sounds like “stitchin’ bee,” a take off on the old quilting bees, when folks got together to make a quilt.

No matter how you say it, Stitch in BE sounds like a good time for those who take up a needle now and then and get crafty.