Getting Out and Up

Getting outside first thing in the morning has been my routine for years. Every morning, usually before anyone else in the house is up, I've slipped out the front door, rain or shine or snow, slush, wind, cold. As poet-artist Brian Andreas captured so well: "I've always liked the time before dawn because there's no one …

Warm Hands and Cookie Traditions

The colorblock hand warmers (Purl Soho pattern, Shibui Staccato yarn) are off the needles, blocked, and ready for...whom? I don't know. I made them because I fell in love with the yarn while treating myself to a gift certificate purchase  (thanks, Jill!) at the amazing Gather Here in Somerville. I'm not thrilled with the thumb …

Mitts and Socks

Late last month, Patrick and I joined a couple of cousins at a beautiful and stirring choral concert. The concert -- which had been planned for months and by tragic coincidence occurred one week after the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue -- featured music from Terezín Concentration Camp and a new composition, Anne Frank: …

Mitts and New Knits

When I bought a few skeins of Koigu KPPPM at Flock in late July, I felt justified in straying from my "no new yarn" resolution guiding principle. After all, I'd just finished two projects and certainly deserved a reward, right? Plus it was on sale, so I practically was required to add these lovely skeins …

Vote One, Knit Two

A couple of years ago, I became a local election volunteer -- not for a particular candidate (although I still do that) but for our city. You know, one of those people who welcomes you to the polling place, checks your name off a list, hands you a ballot, directs you to the electronic vote-counting …

Exuberant Girls with Yarn & Needles

Have I mentioned recently how much I enjoy teaching knitting? Oh, I have? Maybe a couple or few times? Well, I'll say it again. Every Thursday afternoon since early January, I've been teaching fourth- and fifth-grade girls from a local after-school program how to knit. There's never a dull moment in what is definitely the …

Fearless Knitter Finished Objects

In November, I started teaching a Knit 101 class at Stitch House, one of Boston's lovely local yarn stores (LYS). Starting at 9:00 on Saturday mornings, a group of about six or eight new knitters gather around the table for learning, creating, sharing, and only occasionally, cursing. The students include sisters, ages 7 and 9, …

Cozy Knits for a Birthday Girl

My Twitter feed is full of ideas for gift knitting. As we get closer to Christmas, there are more "quick knits" made with chunky, bulky, and super bulky yarn. Someone could probably track how the changes in yarn weights correspond with amount of time until Christmas. But that someone isn't me because I've got gifts to knit. …

Knitting Class: Small but Fierce

After several years of having 6 to 8 knitters around the table at each knitting class, I find myself with two very small sessions this fall. I don't know what accounts for the change, and I'm not taking the lack of enrollment personally (at least most of the time!). What these regular Fearless Knitters lack …

Knitting in Turbulent Times

Was Election Day really only a week ago?! Like many people in the US and beyond who supported Hillary Clinton, I've experienced shock, anger, dismay, disappointment, and a flurry of other emotions. For most of last week, I tuned out nearly all media. I just needed to retreat temporarily, focus on my work (which does …

Turning a Hat into Fingerless Gloves

10 year old Brigid turned her hat-to-be into a fingerless glove.

Back to the Shop

For the past several months, my participation in the Friday mid-day knitting group at JP Knit and Stitch has been minimal, and I really miss it. I'd vowed to go yesterday, and even though it meant dropping off Patrick at his train 45 minutes early, I made it for the second hour. And boy, I …

Island Knitting

Nearly 30 years ago, my in-laws had the imagination, chutzpah, and foresight to buy an abandoned barn on nearly an acre of land on a lovely island off the coast of Massachusetts. Over the years, they added on rooms in a not quite random, but definitely quirky, fashion: bunk beds built into hallway walls, 4 …