A Grand Plan for 2010

Ok, so I knit.

We've established that.

And I knit alot. It's become the thing I do when I want to do nothing.

Or what I used to call "Doing Nothing."

I'm relatively new to it - having learned in fall 2007 - and I can honestly say it's the one thing in my life where the Expectation of The Thing and the Experience of The Thing have met neatly at the same place.

A rarity in life, I'm sure you will agree.

In the past 2 years of acquainting myself with knitting and it's associated techniques, materials and community, one name comes up again and again: Elizabeth Zimmermann.

To an outsider, seeing the whole of a community rise up in adoration of an individual strikes chord of intimidation in the heart.
"Who is she?"
"Can she really *be* that good?"
And the inevitable urge to rebel.

But a good friend lent me a book, The Opinionated Knitter - I took my time getting to it, but what I found inside was a world of welcome.

I can't really explain it, but everything about EZ is warm. She's witty yet pragmatic and full of mirth. You know she would offer you a cup of tea (or home-brewed beer), something sweet, and let you paw through her stash with abandon. Of course, she'd ask to see what was on your needles, offer supportive suggestions and tease out some concern that would be allayed with appropriate words of comfort.

And I got all of this from a knitting book.

This same friend also gave me a copy of The Knitter's Almanac, which is at the core of this post.

Two things happened in the past 24 hours to direct me to this course...

Thing 1: I got to reading the almanac last night and, upon waking up, saw that a new friend on Ravelry had noted the hat that begins the year of knitting.

Thing 2: Mrs. Zimmermann was born in 1910, and we are on the cusp of a centennial (very exciting, truly).

Putting two and two together, I am going to embark on the realization of the Knitter's Almanac in celebration of EZ's 100th year. I am very excited to try her techniques and get to know her through her books and - if I can find them - her videos from PBS. I do plan to veer off course, as there are a number of projects not in the almanac that interest me, and I think EZ would approve of going off the path when called into the wilderness.

It will serve as a Primer Year for me - I dove into knitting with the zeal of a convert and am afraid of my sophomoric urges. I look to EZ to set me straight and start me at the beginning, where I rightly belong.

We begin, of course, in January.

Knit on.