How does a person know when she's ready to start a blog? How do you decide that you have something to say that's worth reading? I really don't know, but I'm diving into this anyway.

What I do know is that knitting and knitters teach me a lot more that just how to use yarn and needles to make things that are practical, beautiful, or disastrous. Knitting is my refuge, my salvation, my constant. Knitters are my teachers, students, and inspiration.

Knitting connects me to so many things. I marvel at its history, and how compelling it still is. Seemingly endless possibilities from just two stitches keep knitters innovating and learning.

My weekly knit night group includes women who are up to 40 years apart in age, in very different life circumstances, from nearing retirement to struggling to pay for health care or the mortgage, from three kids to none, and we all come together with yarn and needles and share what we know and what we don't know.

Every day I learn from women and men far flung in time and place who share this passion and this need for yarn. Whether we need the therapeutic effects of simple stitches and a luxurious yarn, we need something practical to keep us or a loved one warm, we need a challenge, or we need tangible accomplishment, knitting provides.

Knitting and knitters have given me so much, I have to write about it. I benefit so much from others' writing about knitting, and I hope someone finds something helpful here as I write.