Casting On!

I’m absolutely amazed to think that within the next week there will be a blog here. My Blog—in fact. As my amazement makes clear, while I am writing this blog, I am not the technical wizard behind it—that would be my partner Melissa: artist, graphic designer, webmaster, and person who is sensible enough to know that when your partner is a knitter you’ve just got to go with it. Not only is she willing to listen to me going on and on and on about stitches/designs/fibers. In fact, she’s actually willing to expose herself to extended doses of such topics so that I can go on and on and on to the world at large.

A few quick facts about me with more to follow. I came to knitting relatively late, but honestly. Late, in that I’ve just been knitting for a few years after many years of embroidery and quilt-making. Honestly, in that I come from a long line of hard-core knitters on my mother’s side, so this knitting thing was pretty much inevitable even though I went through any number of years of utter confusion during which I found yarn itchy and uappealing. I pay my bills by teaching writing to university students, which can be rather labor-intensive (200 or so pages of essays to read every weekend), but also immensely satisfying. In fact, my students are the ones who got me knitting. They’d pull out their own projects when they got to class early, and I found myself torn between longing because I wanted to be knitting too and indignity because I didn’t know how to do it.

When I’m not teaching or knitting (which actually does happen), I’m often reading (non-fiction—I’m sure some of my non-knitting-related posts will wander off into the topics of some of these books). Between the two of us, Melissa and I are mothers to six very spoiled cats, so you can expect all sorts of stories about their adventures—particularly their eagerness to help with my knitting projects.

Next time—I’ll explain the origin of “What If Knits.” I imagine most of you are already bonafide what-if knitters whether you know it or not. I’m planning to post updates on current projects, reviews of books and fibers, original patterns—and my observations about the ecstasies and agonies that are our shared obsession—knitting.

Please let me know what you do and don’t enjoy about this site. I’d like this to be a fun place for us to gather together.