Now we are five

Pretend the white chocolate curls are bamboo knitting needles to make it “knittier”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KNITGRRL.COM! The first ever Knitgrrl post, five years ago today. Let’s have a laugh:

My goal is to learn to knit well enough to make creative / beautiful wearable objects, and to pick up associated skills along the way. (Spinning? weaving? dyeing? I’ll cross those bridges as they come…) I used to do a lot of embroidery, but you can only have so many pillows! Sweaters are more my speed…

What was I knitting in 2002? A scarf, to this day unfinished. I have a twinge of guilt every time I encounter it in my stash. That summer I was busy working on the “Secret Project”, aka the Eddie Sweater, which you can see in a spinning article I wrote for Knitty in early 2003 and in the intro to Spin to Knit. My “only so many pillows” crack is also pretty funny, given that this February I finished a book of pillow patterns for Chronicle.

Since this blog started, made separate from my personal one to prevent boring my non-knitter friends to tears, I’ve…

• written or edited over nine books
• made some of the greatest friends you can imagine via the online knitting community
• started my own business
• learned to spin, dye, weave, felt, crochet and much, much more
• traveled the U.S. and Canada teaching fiber-related classes
• landed my own magazine column, and written for many others

This is just amazing to me. I am so very, very lucky. Not to say that hard work isn’t a major part of it all — I think I put in more hours every week than anyone I know — but you know what they say? If you’re doing something you love, you’ll never “work” a day in your life. I am thankful that knitting came into my life at just the right time. I’d had a disastrous relationship and job end, moved halfway across the country, sold the house I bought when I was 22, left most of my family and friends behind… but knitting kept me sane. And stitch by stitch, I rebuilt my life for the better.

Sometimes you’ve got to just frog to get past the bad bits, and reknit your life the way you want it to be shaped. Decreases are almost always paired with increases, if you want to play knit-life philosopher.

Enough of that — let’s eat cake!

Tagged with: Events, Knitting