It’s a very good place to start!

The thermometer outside is registering 102 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) and no matter whether it is the ‘dry heat’ of the desert or monsoon season swampiness it is undeniably hot. Knitting is not the first pastime most people would think of when they think of Tucson, Arizona. Yet, here we are, two friends who met in a vibrant knitting group in Tucson, Amy and Rachel.

(Okay, so vibrant is a conservative way to describe the group we knit with.  We’re a group that loves to talk knitting, politics, sex, culture, literature, oh and knitting again. Sometimes we even talk about crochet!  We’re that bawdy gang of women, drinks in hand, ranging from mid twenties to post-menopausal, making too much noise and having way too much fun. We’re that group your parents warned you to stay away from.)

Amy is a recent arrival from Japan, where she has lived for the past 17 years and I’ve been living in Tucson for 28 years other than a short sojourn where my family lived in Florence, Italy for 7 months (why yes, I did ship yarn back). I grew up near Liverpool in England.

So back to knitting – knitting in the desert no less. Amy argues that there is need for wooly or at least lineny knit layers even in the deep mid-Summer. If you dare venture outside in the summer and then return to the air conditioned cool of most buildings you may fall victim to a common desert plight, OZAC – Over Zealous Air Conditioning. Yes, it’s a bit of stretch, but let us justify our knitting addiction, our need to buy skeins of the woolly warm stuff to create with and let us share the joy of it here, and the many tangents we go off on.

May the yarn be with you,

Rachel