Unraveling Michele - An Introductory Post

Hello All! Welcome to our blog! Caytee has written a FABULOUS bio/story about her knitting journey and now it’s my turn. I can talk all day and night but writing it all out is a little daunting.

I’m Michele <wave> and am on my 60th trip around the sun, knitting in hand for 39 of those orbits. My mother was very crafty and taught me to crochet at 6 or 7 years old. She attempted to teach me to knit a few years after that but it didn’t take - I didn’t catch on as quickly as I did with crochet and, while she was an expert crocheter, Mom really didn’t enjoy knitting. Though she did try later in life because of my focus on it - there’s this sock project that is hysterical proof of the trying! So the knitting got shoved in a drawer and crocheting was my only yarn-based craft for years. Fast forward several years to my senior year at NC State, studying pulp and paper chemical engineering, when I started a part-time job in a yarn shop. The owner focused on needlepoint, cross-stitch, knitting, and crocheting. Since I could do three of the four, I got hired on the condition that I learned to knit so I could help customers. And no, she wouldn’t teach me; that’s what how-to books are for. So I went to K-Mart (which sold yarn and supplies back in the day) and bought a Coats & Clark How To Knit booklet, straight metal needles, and a skein of Red Heart. I wore out that skein of hot pink acrylic yarn doing everything in that booklet over the course of the next two weeks and she pronounced me sufficiently skilled to help customers. I haven’t looked back since 1984 - knitting goes everywhere I go, including to the hospital for the surgeries I’ve had.

I’ve got a pretty complete arsenal of techniques in my “toolbox” - there’s not a whole lot I haven’t tried over the years in terms of yarn. I’ve taught many knitting classes over the years and designed a few things too. Mostly before I became a high school science teacher - teaching full-time in addition to raising a family has taken up a lot of my time over the last couple of decades. I haven’t gotten into weaving (yet) but I love spinning, on spindles and on wheels. I haven’t done much in recent years (ummm, job and family) but now that the children are grown I have more time so hopefully soon I’ll be showing y’all some spinning results!

Speaking of family, I’m married (30 years in February 2024) with three children ages 27, 25, and 21 (almost). I’m also a dog and cat mom - all foundlings/strays. We seem to be past the frogs, lizards, fish, and moths stage of life, especially since the youngest is on his own. None of them do yarny things YET - I’m still holding onto the hope that one of them will jump into it with me.

As for the science nerd side of me, that started very young. Apparently once I started talking, my favorite activity became asking “How do they …” questions and expecting complete answers. Very complete; I wouldn’t stop until they explained fully how something worked or was made. My very favorites to ask were how paper is made and how bread is made. “From trees” and “from wheat” was not enough; I wanted to know HOW trees become paper and wheat becomes bread. So my parents bought a set of Science encyclopedias so we could look all this stuff up and answer my questions. Then when I was 10 or 11, someone gave me the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov to read and my love of science fiction exploded. I fell hard for all things science-y. I was already in love with math; then I took chemistry in 1978 and realized that math had a purpose in science and my fate was sealed! The cherry on top was being told (by a high school guidance counselor!) that girls didn’t become engineers and work in “a men’s field”; I should consider accounting or nursing because I was so good at math and science. Ummm, no thank you. I’m absolutely going to prove you wrong and succeed as a woman amongst the men in a highly technical field. And I did. Then I left industry to be a mom, later morphing all those science skills and strange bits of knowledge into teaching all the sciences.

So now you’ve heard how my knitting and nerd lives began all those many years ago and developed into the weirdest half of the Knitistry Knerds. Caytee and I met when she joined the faculty. We already had a lot in common with our industry experience but when our knitting obsessions were made public, the friendship was cemented and proceeded to grow.