Knitting in Florida

After a long, long hiatus from blogging, I’m back! After some major upheavals in my life*, I’m now a proud parttime resident of Florida – and still knitting. My knitting projects have given me an hour or so of quiet, peaceful, solace every day during this past awful year, and for that, I’m profoundly grateful.

As I packed my car for the trip down to Florida this past week, I – of course – made sure I had enough knitting projects for my time here. I had just gotten two project kits, bulky weight yarn for a cowl and a scarf. Those would be good, easy, do-able projects for my time in Florida – or so I thought.

But when I arrived, knitting scarves and cowls in bulky weight yarns was the last thing I wanted to do. The temperature was in the high 70s here in Florida, with the sun shining and the beach waiting for me to take a nice long walk in my bathing suit. I didn’t even want to touch heavy wool, much less hold it in my lap while I knitted. Those projects got stuffed back in my suitcase within minutes.

But I still wanted to knit – just something light and at least somewhat “beachy.” I settled on some lightweight, DK weight wool yarn in a cream color with blue speckles. I started a shawl project, but really, I’m “knitting-just-to-knit” with this project. I want something that weighs next to nothing, can be tucked into a beach bag, and requires little or no thinking on my part. 

So I’ve happily worked on this small, lightweight project for a week…until this morning. The temperature dropped like a brick. As I walked along the beach this afternoon, hugging myself against the cold wind, the cold water licking at my bare feet, I thought, “maybe that scarf project with bulky weight yarn might not be such a bad idea.”

Stay warm and keep knitting, Cindy

Cynthia Coe is the author of The Prayer Shawl Chronicles, a collection of interrelated short stories about knitters and those they meet through knitting and sharing prayer shawls. 

Copyright 2022 Cynthia Coe

*My husband of 37 years was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in May of 2020 and died in December of 2020. I sold the family farm, moved, and had huge responsibilities to deal with. And…I suffered writer’s block for the first time ever. Back in the saddle, I hope!