The October sun is shining on my mother’s hands as she sits by the window, a ball of mulberry-colored yarn in the basket beside her, and a half-finished sock in her lap. Her hands move quickly through motions memorized by years of practice, and the sock slowly grows, row by row.
I look down now, at the work in my own lap. A ball of olive-green yarn is balanced on my knees, and a lace scarf runs from my hands to the floor. I’ve been working on it for a long time now; I only have a few rows left before it will be done.

It started with a simple question....

“Do you knit?” My friend Anne was over for the day and we had been talking pleasantly about books and movies on the floor of my bedroom, when she espied my long-neglected bag of knitting. She of course asked the inevitable.

“Occasionally,” I answered, sighing a little while trying to recall the last time I had actually completed a knitting project. Anne then rummaged through the bag and drew out my largest pair of needles, made of fat, grey plastic.