Yarn might come third in that subtitle, but it’s the main reason I’m here, writing a blog. Gardening is what I write about usually; I’ve been gardening (even professionally for a while) for nearly twenty years, and writing about it for just about as long. Books and I have a far longer history together: a voracious childhood reader turned English major turned graduate student turned voracious amateur reader again. Laundry? The outward and visible sign of family life: I’ve been at home since our first daughter (husband D and I met in grad school) was born eleven years ago; there’s a nine year old daughter, as well, and a six year old son. (Plus two cats, and a dog.) I write about all that, too.
But the yarn, and knitting, that’s new. I had started -- and promptly stopped -- knitting in third grade. That was it until last December (2005), when my friend Wendy recruited me for a knitting circle she was pulling together. “Don’t worry, it’ll come right back,” she promised, and she lured me in with two skeins of Manos del Uruguay #115. 
I made the first of three spiral scarves (it's the red one), fondly known as the noodles.
And I remembered a conversation I’d had at my college reunion the previous spring (that would have been April 2005). Ann Meador (she goes by Ann Shayne now) and I had been on the same freshman dorm hall, and now we were standing in a buffet line, chatting and catching up on what we’d been up to. Me? Dropping out of grad school, writing for a couple of magazines, and driving carpools. Her? Yup, driving carpools – and writing a knitting blog and, well, (mentioned oh-so-modestly) she had a book coming out the following spring. I went and found the blog, and while Wendy gets the credit for coaxing me to the edge, it was surely Ann (and her accomplice Kay) who pushed me in the deep end. Thanks. Really.
Near the end of The Tempest, Shakespeare’s Miranda marvels at what the play’s events have revealed to her: “O brave new world, that has such people in it.” Her father Prospero answers “Tis new to thee.” What to make of that reply? Plenty of readers have heard world-weary cynicism (New? It isn’t really new at all), or even jaded, pat you on the head paternalism (There, there; the thrill will wear off soon enough). I’ve always heard the echo of something else, Prospero catching Miranda’s wonder, experiencing a version of it himself: It really is new to you. How, well, wonderful.
If you’re as new to knitting as I am, I’d love to have you along. If you’ve been at it a while, how are we doing? And the same goes for the rest of the list: gardens, books, life and laundry… What’s new?
