It is some kind of miracle that all knitting is constructed of only two stitches: knit and purl. Sure, you throw in some yarn overs, and sometimes you knit the stitches out of order, but when it really comes down to it, knitting is simplicity. The most incredible gossamer lace shawl ... the trickiest aran ... a humble sock ... each just made with knit and purl.

A half finished shawl left on the coffee table isn't a mess; it's an object of art.

You know you knit too much when ... Before you buy anything, such as a hammock or curtains, you seriously wonder whether you could knit it.

You know you knit too much when ... You take knitting to a wedding, in case there's a little time before the bride comes down the aisle. Double points if you are the bride.

It is a peculiarity of knitters that they chronically underestimate the amount of time it takes to knit something. Birthday on Saturday? No problem. Socks are small. Never mind that the average sock knit out of sock-weight yarn contains about 17,000 stitches. Never mind that you need two of them. (That's 34,000 stitches, for anybody keeping track.) Socks are only physically small. By stitch count, they are immense.

I will not let the non-knitters of the world decide how normal I am.

When people see me knitting, I tell them I'm a knitter. Not the sort of knitter they may have run into before, but a passionate, constant, deliberate knitter. I knit everyday, all the time, everywhere I go.