Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Well, today is the last day The Whole Nine Yarns will be open. It has been a privilege to be part of the community that Debi and the rest of the crew built over the years in Woodstock. Together we have supported each other through the happy and the sad, through projects that went well and projects that went to the great frog pond. We have celebrated the joys. And we have knit on through all adversity, as Elizabeth Zimmermann advised. For more than a decade the shop has been my home away from home. In the last couple years I have been absent from knit nights, as the traffic to Woodstock and the time required became prohibitive. I've spent more weekends traveling for work or pleasure, so fewer opportunities to teach in the shop. But even when I was away for a month, going back to the shop was returning home, returning to someplace safe and warm and welcoming, someplace where there would always be hugs and comfort. I feel the loss a little bit right now. I am sure I will feel i...

A decade ago, I was president of Atlanta Knitting Guild. The very first STITCHES South was on the horizon. I had just lost a dear cat (Copernicus), but did not realize I would lose the other one (Sophia) in a few months. In October of 2008, I had a falling out with a very dear friend who helped me fight off the clinical depression monster. That broken friendship would not be mended for almost a decade. I was making friends at The Whole Nine Yarns, but did not know I would lose one later that summer. Here we are, a decade later. I lost a cat (Brûlée) in November. This time, I will not be surprised if I lose the other one (Vincent) within a few months. I lost my knitting mentor, Jan Stephens, back in September. We lost two other North Georgia Knitting Guild members in 2018, Claudia Pergason and Christine Cardenas. I was thinking that maybe 2019 would be different. Instead, we lost our North Georgia Knitting Guild newsletter editor, Nadine Kelley, on the first day of this new year. It i...