Apr 27 2009

About the Author

Published by The Knitternaut

I think I named this site after watching whatever superhero movie had the Juggernaut in it (X-Men?), and thinking that sometimes my knitting habit has unstoppable inertial movement.

I’ve been knitting since I was a kid, but like many people I got back into it as an adult. My mom taught me once upon a time, and I laboriously worked at it.  When I saw other people knitting I thought I was doing it all strange and backwards, but it turned out that I was just knitting English style in a sea of Continental knitters.  After learning that my style was indeed legitimate, I felt a lot better about it and now embrace my yarn throwing technique.

When I was younger I never really finished all that much, though I did do a lot of strange small yarn-lumps that I claimed were mittens for my dolls.  The odd Christmas I would get it together enough to complete a project, and my dad would be saddled with another of my misshapen, dropped-stitch creation that I proudly hoped he would wear to work.

One year, I made was a striped light-and-dark blue scarf for my dad.  I think I got the yarn from Safeway, and it definitely wasn’t the same at one end as it was on the other.  I don’t think it was even long enough to be more than a yoke around his neck, and just tucked into his collar.  My dad worked in a mine, and it actually kept him serviceably warm, so he wore it to work every day.

One day in November, just as my dad was having his lunch in the loader he was working in, he noticed one of the other guys on shift sitting in the snow, just down from the road.  My dad wondered what he was up to - the guy was a notorious prankster, but this seemed a bit odd.  The guy waved to him, and then waved again and again.  Finally, my dad got out of the truck and climbed down the embankment next to the road to see what was wrong.

The guy had taken a wrong step, fallen down the embankment and broken his leg.  He’d been sitting there for hours in the cold, waiting for someone to come by and spot him.  By now, he was getting pretty cold and needed medical attention.  My dad took off for help, but not before taking my scarf off and wrapping it around his head and neck to keep him warm.

I used to see this fellow now and again as I was growing up, and he would always tell me how warm that scarf was, and that it saved his life.  It was ugly, but my dad wore it until it fell apart years later.  My knitting has improved in the intervening time, and I’m branching bravely away from scarves and into sweaters, colourwork, and even my own designs, the best thing I will probably ever make was that ratty little scarf.

I live in Montreal, Canada with my husband (aka Mr. K), and my son (aka Mr. Bug, born July 2008).  Mr. K also ventures bravely into the world of fibre arts.  I somehow unwittingly inflicted my love of all things yarn on him, and now his stash is bigger than mine.  Not that I’m competing or anything.  I often try to pester him into writing about his adventures on this site.

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