This blog will no doubt cut into my knitting time...

I am the granddaughter and daughter of knitters, and I have the ponchos, afghans, and psychedelic snake to prove it. Somewhere along the way I learned the rudiments of the craft, and I'm both grateful and amazed that my latent skills, virtually unused throughout most of my life (a granny square hat here, a sleeveless sweater there) have resurfaced in recent months, and I am discovering the joy of creating what I consider nothing short of masterpieces one stitch at a time. However, I find myself with two severely limiting parameters: 1) I live in a climate where one has absolutely no use whatsoever for sweaters, scarves, hats, mittens, etc., no matter how soft and delicious and irresistible they may be; and 2) I don't believe in gauge. Oh, I've tried knitting swatches a few times (OK, once), but on the one hand I'm always too eager to get started with the "real" knitting, and on the other hand, apparently my tension requires a needle size which doesn't exist on this good earth.

So what am I to do? Well, you and I will both discover that as we go along, but the short answer is this: afghans. Even in Florida one needs to wrap up in a cozy blankie once in awhile, and I'm even willing to crank up the AC if need be to achieve the right amount of chilliness when Mother Nature just refuses to cooperate. And who cares about gauge with a blanket? No need to be exact as long as it covers most of me when I'm curled up on the couch, right? The bigger the better, I say. Trouble is, we don't really need any more throw blankets in our house - 6 or 7 is probably enough. Well then I'll just knit blankets for other people, that's what I'll do! Kids going off to college, and new babies, and friends up north, and maybe someone who's going through a rough patch and could use a soft, warm hug.

Well, I already have a couple of these projects under my belt, and I'll share them in upcoming posts. But now I have also accomplished the task of writing this first post. For some reason getting started with this blog took more time and mental effort than knitting an afghan, but I've done it. All that's left for now is to imagine where this adventure in stitches and words will take me.