Salvete, Blogland

Hello. I'm Hilary, I live in San Francisco, and this is my blog. I have heard the average readership of any given blog out there is 1.8. So far, with only one post before now, I know Sophy has read it, and I'm pretty sure my lovely husband did too (well, I made him), so I figure achieving above-average readership on my second day is doing pretty well.

Unfortunately, readership of this blog is not likely to increase.

In my life, I have been obsessed with many things. The top 10 include Neill (that's the husband), Greek, Latin, knitting, grunge music, kitties, and some other things I will not divulge. This blog is about the knitting but I'm also trying to pay homage to the dead languages that once consumed my life: the Greek by naming the blog after Homer's masterpiece (Yarniad, Iliad, get it?), the Latin by using words in that language as much as possible in my sidebar. (Yes, I know this is a stretch.) Neill may pop up here and there when I make him model something, and our cat does love to crash a picture, but I will not scare away any potential readers with my early-90's grunge music (which, lucky for Neill, I'm not obsessed with anymore).

Anyway, I've always loved making stuff. My grandmothers and mother collectively taught me how to knit and sew when I was about 10 years old, but I mostly made doll clothes, pillows, a scrunchie here and there. My first major knitting project was a blue and green scarf in garter stitch that started with roughly 20 stitches and ended with 57. I worked on it for about 9 years off and on and had to have my mom bind off for me. It's the most hideous thing I've ever seen. I picked up the needles again when I had first moved to San Francisco and made about 1,000 more scarves. For some reason, even with all the sewing I had done, I was terrified of knitting patterns. Then, on New Year's Eve, 2006, I decided to try my hand at following a simple hat pattern from some Martha Stewart holiday magazine. To my great surprise, it came out just like in the picture. I figured if I could follow a hat pattern, why not a sweater pattern, too? So I decided on the Greek Pullover from Interweave Knits summer 2005 because that issue was on sale for $3 at my local yarn shop. One night, taking a break from my very first sweater, I thought I'd see if I might possibly be able to find a pattern for a knitted cardigan online. (I had absolutely no idea that there was actually information on knitting online!) With that first Google search of "knit pattern cardigan" my obsession began. Arisaig sealed the deal. I just thought it was so beautiful how this girl was paying tribute to her grandfather by incorporating his yarn and his story into this gorgeous lace cardigan. I always felt that things I had sewn or knit were always done in honor of the women who taught me these skills -- just the act of practicing them, for me, was paying some sort of tribute. And when I came across Arisaig, I realized I wasn't alone!

Now, I can't stop. Knitting is mostly what I think about at work (now that my Caltrain Knitting Buddy is also my instant message buddy, not to mention my real life buddy!), at home, on the train, in the car, etc. etc. And, because I just had to have a blog, even if no one ever reads it, I now have a way to release all those knitting thoughts out into the ether and capture, for myself, this great obsession that will one day probably fade.

Hello, blogland. I hope you don't mind me joining you!