Post from my Past

Six years ago, I started a blog called, "Chick with Sticks."  I wrote one entry.  I feel so different today than the person who wrote the entry.  I had really forgotten the whole sitting in a chair crying part.  Isn't that interesting?  By the way, I don't knit much anymore.

Here's my post from November 2003:

Well, another obsessive blogger-reader has taken the plunge and started a blog. This blog will be my knitting blog (mostly) though I'm sure other bits of my life and crafty endeavors will seep through.

My current obsession is knitting -- a bit unusual that it's still my obsession after a year. Usually, I pick one crafty endeavor, dive in head first and burn myself out pretty soon thereafter. I think knitting has stuck because I love fibers and fiber arts, the possibilities are endless, and there is a true community out there, readily accessible, or easily held-at-bay. Knitting also fits my lifestyle right now. I really like to sew, but it's rather anti-social to hide out in a little closet-like room in our apartment every night.

My grandmother taught me to knit, but that didn't really stick. When I was 14, I spent the summer with a family in Germany. The oldest daughter, Veronika, taught me to knit. I returned to high school in the States, and needless to say, there were not a lot of knitters, cool patterns or great yarns out there. Pretty soon thereafter I lost my needles.

One year ago, my father died suddenly. I had a very difficult time coping with any kind of down time. As the mother of 2 two-year-olds, there is not a lot of silence, but I did have a half-hour in the dark as they drifted off to sleep each night. Before my dad died, I used to use the time to unwind and transition from the crazy day. After he died, I found myself silently weeping in the rocking chair in the dark every night. I needed something to do.

A friend in my mother's group brought her knitting one day and inspired me. I have always loved to make things (cooking was my last obsession, but it's almost always something crafty/creative). I went to my lys (happens to be "The Yarn Company", home of the Yarn Girls) and bought some Tahki baby, some needles and a got scarf pattern. My fingers sort of remembered how to knit, but they had forgotten how to purl. So, I consulted a recent issue of Martha Stewart, which had featured knitting, and re-learned how to cast-on and how to purl (my fingers forgot that too).

It was not until I joined a stich-n-bitch eight months later that I realized that I knit continentally. I had no idea that there was a difference. I feel an odd physical connection with my 14 year-old self, who knit constantly for one summer, not to begin again for almost 20 years. Somehow my body remembered, even though my mind didn't.

I named my blog "grin-grumble" because that's how Veronika (my German friend who taught me to knit) signed her letters, followed by a a happy face and a sad face. I always thought that it was a humorous translation of something German that didn't quite fit the American venacular.