With the summer of 2017 threatening the biggest MKAL (Mystery Knit Along) of the year, Starting Point by Joji Locatelli, and some five thousand plus women and men signed up, sharing pictures of their yarn choices in blogs, Ravelry groups, Facebook, and on Instagram.
I was so excited about the experience of knitting with so many other makers, there were chats and people anticipating what we thought might be coming our way. We had all picked our yarn, five different colors of hand-dyed yarns of various hues and variegation. Some folks’ picks were bright and colorful, others more neutral and muted.
I took the last road except for the chartreuse and even that one had a bit of a muted gold undertone. As I looked at my yarn choices and compared them to others I began to second guess myself and the darned Knit Along hadn’t even been cast on.
This was my first Mystery Knit Along but by now I was a fairly accomplished knitter. Intermediate patterns were quite normal for me, but I was a lone knitter. I didn’t belong to a knitting group, although I would have loved that, nor did I have any friends who were knitters.
I have always been an introvert and so sitting in my house by myself knitting away with an audiobook or tv show providing the noise made me happy. However, I longed for the community of knitters I had heard about so much. The only local yarn shop in our area didn’t host knit groups and I wasn’t sure how to find them.
I turned to the internet, Facebook, and Instagram. There I found hundreds of knitters from all around the world. They were of all different skill levels and they used all different kinds of yarn. By now I had started using more moderately priced yarns and I had splurged on some hand dyed.
Five skeins of hand-dyed yarn was a big purchase, somewhere in the neighborhood of $125 or more if you could afford it. I was committed now, stepping off the edge into the world of hand-dyed yarn and all that went with it. Knit Along or bust…
Thanks for reading,
Kim.
