Knitting Together

I do a lot of my knitting socially. In fact, socializing is why I really got into knitting in the first place. I'm sure I've probably shared my 'getting into knitting' story previously, but the abbreviated version is that shortly after moving to Boston I wandered by (and into) a yarn shop and suddenly learned about the whole social knitting world - prior to that the epitome of social knitting was knitting a hat next to my friend knitting wristwarmers on the T-bane in Oslo. Suddenly there were knitting groups and knitting websites and I caught the bug fast.

I learned to knit when I was 6 or so and knit and ripped out a few strips of garter stitch. In high school I made two hats out of crazily variegated yarn, knit flat and seamed. I think one of them may still reside in my mom's garage.

I knit a scarf for my boyfriend in college. I knit a scarf for myself shortly after that and arrived in Norway with most of a scarf and had to ask my mom how to bind off long distance to Oregon. I went to the library and got a Norwegian pattern book, went to the yarn store and got my first circular needles and some wool, and successfully knit a ribbed hat in the round from a Norwegian pattern - my knitting has been rather adventurous from the start. I didn't like the hat so I gifted it to a classmate. I learned to crochet in Norway too.

I returned to the US and put down the knitting, although I think I did knit a hat for the boyfriend as well. And then I moved to Boston and all this craziness started. And now, well now it's history. I was asked on Monday by Guido about whether I think knitting is adversely affecting my life - does my knitting take anything away from my life?

I've thought about it and I don't think so. It helped me make some great friends here in Boston, gave me an obsession to... obsess over, and introduced me to a whole underground world. And I like it.

I guess I read less - maybe that's a bad thing. I did discover Librivox, however, thanks to knitting and Brenda, so it's enriched me in a literary fashion as well.

But this has gone *way* far from the direction I originally intended, which was to talk about my current group knitting projects - the Baby Norgi and Charlotte's Web which I was going to start tonight but I can't find my needles. Ah well, I guess I can save those for tomorrow.

So there's your philosophical and picture-less entry.

Listening to: Ending Theme ~ Pain of Salvation