Knitty Couture

With the arrival of Fall, I can feel my knitting fingers kicking into frantic motion.  It’s right around this time, with the urge to knit everything you possibly can because the weather is getting cool and cozy, that I’m grateful to have knitting in my life (much like a loved one, you know?).

I’ve been knitting for about 5.5 years.  It began during my break between college and graduate school.  I was working as a Referral Coordinator at a wonderful not-for-profit, and my colleague, Ellen, was doing something very interesting with yarn and very small sticks.

She was making a very tight fabric, with tiny needles and had a nifty little bag she stuffed her materials in.  When I asked her what she was doing, she said, matter-of-factly, “Knitting.”

“What’s that?” Embarrassingly, I will admit that at the time, I had no idea what knitting was.  I had no recollected exposure to it as a child, though I later found out that my lovely mother and aunts knitted when they were younger.  My mother even showed me the little argyle vests and sweaters she had knitted my brothers and me that are now carefully stored for future grandchildren.

My mother’s description of knitting included, “…so mesmerizing that one forgets all else in the world.”  I know exactly what she means.

Well, Ellen leaves my office, and returns moments later with yarn and plastic needles (which I later learn were circs).

She shows me how to cast on, then weaves the yarn through my left fingers, and walks me through making a stitch. “Through the front of the loop, grab the yarn, and pull it through.”

I knit my first row, which is so tight that if my needles could breathe, it would die of suffocation after I was done with it.

“Now what?” I ask, after the first row.

“Well,” Ellen says, “Turn it around and start over.”

So I did and so, my life with knitting began.