I have a new found respect for knitting. It’s nice watching a process all the way through, and there are so few things you can actually do that with.

Scott the IT guy at school is a knitter. He also will fix just about anything that could be wrong with a broken computer or a disoriented first-year. When my computer crashed last year, just before breaking the awful news to me that I would have no choice but to buy a new one, he played this for me. I have loved him ever since.The only Christmas present I’ve bought so far is a pretty skein of multi-colored blue yarn for Scott, which Terry picked out in New York.

Terry knits beautiful things. If I ever figure out how to reblog, there’s this whispy thing of blue that he made for a friend. It looks pretty much like this, but even prettier.

The first time I saw someone knit, it was one of my great aunts. Her name is Baby, which is perhaps an uncommon name for an elderly Indian woman, but it fit her alright. Her oldest granson, all of 18, is now a championship winning electric-guitar player in Delhi. She and my great grandmother were visiting my family when we lived in Amherst and I was perhaps five, and Baby periamma had left her knitting in the other room. She asked me to bring it to her, and I did… after carefully pulling out the needles and unwinding the “big knot” that the yarn had gotten itself into. I think it was an almost-completed sweater-sleeve, and it was red. After that I was embarassed to talk to her until I was about 12 or so, which was ok since I only saw here about once a year, and there were always other soft rotund sari-swishing aunts to hide behind at family reunions. I like her much more now, (but also less for other reasons) and she makes good soup. The sweater I wore as a part of my school uniform in high school was, I think, something she made for daughter Padma (my aunt), and I got second-hand.