Dear K,

I really liked your last post. So much in fact that I will reply in kind. :)

I don't usually knit for other people. I know I should, but I really get more joy out of knitting for myself. Is that selfish? The strange thing is that I really like giving gifts to others, especially knitted gifts, but I like to do the actual knitting for myself. I think that it works to my advantage when I am working on a project that I enjoy and it just happens to result in a gift for someone else. For example, when I modified the Whitby sock pattern for my brother. Voila! A knitting project that I enjoyed and a finished product for someone else. That said I cast on this weekend for an afghan that will be a wedding gift for my sister. (Pictures at some point in the not too distant future, provided that I can remember to take them.)

The post in my personal blog (sorry folks I like to keep my personal private while public can be, well, public) was a fill in the blank about what it would take in life for you to feel successful. Personally, I'm still not sure what will make me feel successful. I think this is mostly because in the next 3 months it is quite likely that I will have achieved all of my life goals - except for starting a family and that one is years and years and years away - which means that clearly they weren't as lofy as I had thought. Or, I suppose the alternate to that is that my life goals were lofty but I can do better. So I am now trying to decide what my new goal(s) might be. How does this tie into knitting? Knitting is the one thing I can do that allows me to achieve perfection. There is nothing else in life that I can undo and fix in the same way. If you make a mistake in anything else there are significant repercussions, but if you make a mistake when knitting, simply frog it and fix it. Knitting allows for the potential of success and perfection no matter how badly things may begin. It is simply perfect. (This truth was imparted to me by my knitting guild who recieved the wisdom from a dear friend of theirs who has since passed away. I remember this person - who was wonderful but who I never had the joy of meeting- by passing it on to you.)

Sincerely,
K