Pickin' and Throwin'

Life Changing

Dear Cynthia,

It's hard to figure out ahead of time which life events are going to be life changing. I mean, some of them are obvious, like joining the Peace Corps (haven't done this, but I imagine it would be life changing), or graduating from high school (have done). But, in the day-to-day, it's really difficult to predict which people we meet will become life-long friends, which trips that we take will change us forever, you get the picture...

And so, here are a few things I remember about our trip to Duluth in November 1999:

• We went to a yarn store and I bought the materials to make one of these:

• A book was purchased called "Knitting Without Tears"
• There is a reason the book isn't called "Knitting without throwing your knitting across the table in frustration"
• I called my dh and mentioned that I had been having some dizzy spells and I wondered if I might be pregnant

After returning home from that trip, I took a few classes at the LYS, forced myself to learn how to "pick" so that I could knit color using two hands (though I'm confident my strong preference forever will be to "throw"), started knitting with needles smaller than size eight (something I wouldn't have done without taking the class on fair isle knitting), and a couple months later was knitting things like this: This baby blanket for my firstborn child represents two of my current obsessions, which are my kids and knitting. Both of these I "discovered" while on a quick and simple trip to Duluth.

I'd like to visit Duluth with you again, but I'm not prepared to go back in the too near future. Life changing, indeed!

Warm regards,
Laura (aka yarnthrower)