The knitting

Sometime in the late 1990’s, I saw a sheepdog demonstration at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games I had an epiphany – the skies opened, a beam of light hit me, and I heard the sounds of horns (or maybe it was bagpipes) and I saw the life I wanted. I realized that if I wanted a sheepdog, I would need sheep. If I had sheep, I would need to do something with the fleece. To do something with the fleece, I would need to learn to spin. If I was spinning yarn, I would need to learn to knit.

Dad and Aunt Elizabeth, 1947

I learned the basic stitches from a terrific little book by Vicki Square called The Knitter’s Companion. I had a pattern book called Homespun, Handknit and the advice and patient correction of my Aunt Elizabeth. “Try relaxing your hands a bit.”

Soon after completing a garter stitch scarf that turned out to be in the shape of a polygon , I moved to Norway and was looking for a way to share what I was doing with with friends and family in North Carolina. I stumbled on a few knitting blogs:

So I started one too and called it Bagatell. I added it to the Knitting Blogs webring, which at the time was only about a dozen or so blogs.

Knitting Bloggers
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That early group of knitting bloggers are featured heavily in the wildly popular book Stitch n Bitch – the Knitter’s Handbook by Debbie Stoller and in the first issue of Knitty.com – that’s Kate Wisson on the cover! We even had a miniature launch party on Wendy’s little chat feature on her blog. Ah, nostalgia.

Based on a post on Bagatell, Amy asked me to write a feature on Knitty called Techniques with Theresa.

The articles have been referenced in some cool places, like:

My knitting seems to have slowed down since returning to North Carolina. The weather (and my internal temperature regulation) are very different, but you can find me on Ravelry (raveler #157!) and learn more about patterns I’ve designed on the Patterns page.