I was taught to knit & crochet as a child but it didn’t become an obsession until my thirties. I quickly learned I hated sewing pieces together and became fixated in knitting as many things in one piece as I could. Elizabeth Zimmerman and Meg Swansen entered my life and from that point on, no pattern was knitted unchanged.

Eventually I started experimenting with other ways to create the shapes I wanted. In the mid-1990s I flirted briefly with self-publishing some of my designs. I started Pig Dog Farm - Div. of Yarn and sold a few copies of my Sideways Sox pattern. I entered a fancy version (Sideways Sox Supreme) in a Knitter’s Magazine contest and the pattern ended up in their “Socks Socks Socks” book. Knitter’s even published an article I wrote about grafting, although I can’t remember the issue number. I also did a little test-knitting for some of Beth Brown-Reinsel’s patterns and Charlene Schurch’s book “Mostly Mittens”

But that was about as good as it got. I realized I didn’t have “it”. Dammit, Jim, I’m a technician, not an artist.

In my early 40s the fever faded and knitting was no longer the focal point of my life, but every once in awhile I get a wild hair and need to knit something. Be sure to check back -- you never know what I’ll come up with next!