A Good Yarn

"Making a sock by hand creates a connection to history; we are offered a glimpse into the lives of knitters who made socks using the same skills and techniques we continue to use today."

 — Nancy Bush, author of Folk Socks (1994), Folk Knitting in Estonia (1999) and Knitting on the

Road, Socks for the Traveling Knitter (2001), all published by Interweave Press.

LYDIA HOFFMAN

Knitting saved my life. It saw me through two lengthy bouts of cancer, a particularly terrifying kind that formed tumors inside my brain and tormented me with indescribable headaches. I experienced pain I could never have imagined before. Cancer destroyed my teen years and my twenties, but I was determined to survive.

I'd just turned sixteen the first time I was diagnosed, and I learned to knit while undergoing chemotherapy. A woman with breast cancer, who had the chemo chair next to mine, used to knit and she's the one who taught me. The chemo was dreadful — not quite as bad as the headaches, but close. Because of knitting, I was able to endure those endless hours of weakness and severe nausea. Wi ... read full excerpt from: A Good Yarn ebook