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I have fallen in love with knitting. It happened innocently enough. I was visiting family in Helena, Montana and happened upon a sweet yarn shop that pronounced knitting as the new yoga in their front window. At first, I thought - I don't need one more thing to do in my days. I don't have time for knitting. And knitting is not the new yoga. Then, on the last day of my visit, I wandered into the shop and felt like a kid in a candy store---so much color and texture and possibility.
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I found wool I couldn't live without from a place called Thirteen Mile Lamb & Wool Co. Worsted weight, plum colored, plant-dyed, needle size 8. I had to knit it. I didn't, at the time, know how to knit. I just knew that this wool was meant for my hands and, eventually, my neck.
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I have fallen in love with knitting for the wool, the fiber, the story of the farmers who produce and harvest it. Thirteen Mile Farm raises sheep organically, uses natural plant-based dyes for the yarn, has a solar hot water system, and semi-worsted spinning on small-scale machinary. In their tiny little card attached to the yarn, with an image of a sheep knitting a sweater for himself out of his own shaggy, woolly body, they assert: 'In an era when fossil fuels are diminishing and vulnerable, water is scarce and manure is precious, our small mill is an experiment to assert that decentralized industry may have a future. Your creations with our Montana fibers are part of that work in progress.' Hear hear.
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It's no surprise that I love knitting as I do. My Mom's major in college was spinning, weaving and dying. She used to take the hair from our samoa dog and use it to knit me baby sweaters. I won't knit just any fiber, though. It has to come from somewhere, have some meaning, and the texture and color has to appeal to me in some magical way, a way I know not how to articulate, and that seems like the best kind of way.
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So how did I learn to knit? At my brother's big, round kitchen table late on a Sunday before our 5:55am flight home. His girlfriend, an expert, passionate knitter, sat me down and patiently showed me, row by row. I was sleepy, feeling like a kid in the front row of math class - What do I do with these numbers? This is so not making sense to me but I have to try anyway. She handed me the needles and watched me knit my first row. My fingers stumbled and suddenly felt much less nimble. The starry black night held us under its watch. We stayed up and knit and talked and knit some more. Soon my fingers found a way, and I climbed in to bed proud of my new skill. On the flight home, I knit to cool my tears, sad to say good-bye to my brother. Those rows, now, when you look for them at the bottom of the scarf are imperfect. And that's what I love about knitting. You have this perfect fiber between your fingers. You can mess up but, ultimately, you just keep going. The fiber is always perfect and whole, no matter what.
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