Introductions

How do you start a knitting blog? I guess I should start with how I learned to knit. It wasn't at some older female relative's knee, and it wasn't a long time ago. Knitting seemed like just something interesting to try, back when I was a sophomore in college. So I took a class through my university's recreation workshop program. I plunked down my $20, and after four weeks, left with half of a garter stitch scarf and a plain stockinette hat in the round.

Sadly, I did not leave with any new knitting friends. I'd search out new yarn stores, but never felt like a regular. I didn't join any knitting circles or stitch 'n' bitches. I found myself more than 5 years later with only a few close friends who knit, and two who share my tendency to drool over the prospect of an entire raw fleece. I had made many more scarves, a few misguided sweaters, and even taught myself sock knitting out of a fabulous book. I'd taken a class at my local yarn store and learned how to spin raw wool into yarn. I still felt lonely as a knitter. My significant other started to get this glazed-over look whenever I started talking about entrelac or fair isle. Then, a friend's mom had stumbled across a free felted cat bed knitting pattern on the internet, and I fell down the rabbit hole into the world of knitting blogs.

For a few more years, I just read the blogs. I'd leave a few comments here and there, follow links, that sort of thing. I thought a blog wasn't for me. Although reading alleviated the loneliness a bit, and I got many a good laugh with my few knitting friends over what we'd read there, it was still a one-sided conversation.

I've always been kinda slow socially. The idea that I would need to start talking and participating took a while in breaking through my head. I've been on Ravelry for about seven months now (user name starryknit), and I don't feel quite as lonely. And now there's things I want to say and put out in the world about my knitting and spinning. So here I am, and here's what I was working on today:

These are the Salish Sea Socks, pattern by Cat Bordhi. The yarn is Socks That Rock (lightweight) in the color Bella Coola / Nuxalk, the December shipment of the 2007 Rockin' Sock Club. I'm on size 0 US needles, and if you're on Ravelry you can find these in my projects. Yes, I am very behind in the club. I think I ended the year with a 2.5 GPA or something, having successfully knit up three kits and starting a fourth by the end of the year. I never got to the Lenores or the Summer of Love Lace socks. (Tragic, I know. Lenore is probably the best kit of the year. It's not my fault. I promise. But that's a story for another post.)

Oh, and I guess I should explain the blog title. I'm a knitter who is also into astronomy. It's supposed to be a (not so) clever play on the title of the Vincent Van Gogh painting Starry Night.