Knitting

I first learned to knit as a small child at my great-grandmother's knee. I struggled with the shiny aluminum needles and brightly colored acrylic yarn, the stitches I managed to make so tight they had to be sliced off with a razor blade. After a few more attempts, I gave up - assuming that the knitting talent had passed me by.



As the years went by, I enjoyed other needlecrafts: cross stitch, petit point, sewing, latch-hook and hooked rug making....but I avoided the tempting rhythm of the knitting needles. Imagine my surprise then, when shortly after 9/11 I felt the strong - almost primal - urge to work with sticks and string!



I stopped in at my local yarn store (sadly no longer here, as the owner retired) - an LYS of the very best kind for a beginner: old, filled from floor to ceiling with yarns of every description and for every purpose, a small and carefully edited selection of books, patterns spanning decades, and a very wise owner who spent her days knitting and dispensing advice from behind the counter.



I went to her and asked for yarn and needles and a book for a beginner. She sold me a wonderful book meant for children, bamboo #10s, and a few skeins of wonderful wool. And so my knitting adventure began.