Friends. I knit because of friends.

This seemed like a good time to post this; a knitting friend is currently experiencing a personal tragedy, and all the knitting folk have been awesome in supporting her and letting her know she’s loved. All because of knitting (maybe not directly, but knitting did initially bring everyone together).

I knit because a friend got me interested, and because another friend made me enthusiastic about it (and taught me all kinds of excellent things, not least of all to knit socks). I knit because through it, I’ve made lots more friends. I’ve made friends I’ve never actually met in person (and if you’re on my LJ list, you know how big this is – I do not friend you if I do not know you in person already).

I don’t make friends particularly easily. I’m shy, elitist, and horrible at small talk (actually, I’m not horrible; I’m really more apathetic than anything). I say offensive things without realizing it until after I can’t take them back. I have only as many close friends as I can count on my fingers, and I’m cool with that. It took a long time to get to that point. However, I have many acquaintances, and often I find that it’s nice to go somewhere and not feel completely awkward and left out. So I was overjoyed to discover that knitting gave me common ground and instant conversation with a bunch of total strangers (some of whom are not strangers anymore). And as if that wasn’t awesome enough, becoming a knit blogger further strengthened this.

My dear friend, the ChickenGoddess, would probably be dear to me, but not so quickly had I not been a knitter.

And if I don’t want to talk, everyone at Sunday knitting at Knitch is completely comfortable with me just sitting in silence, listening to everyone else, needles clicking away.

We knitters are cool like that.