I like to write.
I like to knit.
I like to code.

As I contemplate  the foregoing three sentences,  I am tempted to instruct you to take care to read each of them in our present, common manner of parlance,  and not in the vernacular of the  southern past, that idiomatic yet somewhat endearing form of grammar in which you may have encountered such phrases as “I like to died!” (presumably of embarrassment).  However, once the newcomer to the past southern vernacular is apprised of the fact that “I like to” is equivalent to “I almost”,  all becomes clear.

But “I almost died” is not quaint. And, even though, or perhaps because “I almost died” can be taken quite literally, the version in the past southern vernacular is somehow more clear in its meaning.  Indeed, the image of my southern granny rocking in her chair, raising a translucent hand to her wrinkled throat and softly exclaiming “I like to died” obliviates any lingering latent desire to correct her.  Instead, I am wont to wallow in the richness of a patois fast disappearing in our shrinking world, and to cherish each phrase that trickles through my memory of family and acquaintances now long buried in the tenacious red clay of Tennessee.

And so,  I like to write.  And knitting, like writing, provides that stillness of quiet occupation that invites shy memories to tiptoe through the mind.  While my head sifts through recollections, my hands are engaged in construction; in design and color; in possibilities.  Entwining the opposites of what has been with what might be brings balance to my world.

I would not have imagined twenty years ago that knitting would become so popular, nor that its close cousins– spinning, weaving and dyeing– would one day arrive at my threshold, invited guests on a permanent visit.  Nor would I have imagined that one day, thousands of old faithful and newly converted knitters, weavers, dyers and spinners would unceasingly engage in conversation, catechism and controversy via an instrument called the Internet,  and further,  that they would find nothing unbelievable about this constant communication with unseen collaborators and critics.

Underlying the incredible reality of the world wide web is a type of fabric, not knitted, but coded.  The Internet swings on a hammock strung with code.  An artful application of code to machines creates and maintains the internet and the bits that fly around it; an artful application of knitting technique to yarn forms garments and textiles.  What, then, can the judicious application of code to knitting via the internet do?  And why would someone want to provide structured code via web-based applications to anonymous knitters, and to write about it?

Because:
They like to write.
They like to knit.
They like to code.