Favorite local yarn shop:
Knit! in Longwood Florida

My favorite knitting techniques:
beaded knitting/crochet, entrelac, Fair Isle/Norwegian/Scandinavian knitting, intarsia, lace knitting

Types of garments I like to knit:
childrens and babies, womens, mens

I also enjoy these related crafts:
felting

Like many girls, I learned to knit while in Junior High School.  I made a couple of scarves and then moved on to other interests -- boys, if I remember correctly!  Christmas of 2005, my grown-up nieces made handmade gifts for our entire, very large, family.  My mother had just been diagnosed with cancer and it was a stressful time for the family.  My sisters and I were going to be spending a lot of time away from our homes and families to help care for our Mom and I needed something to keep me busy.  So, taking inspiration from my nieces, I thought "I'll make Christmas gifts for the family.  I'll knit them!"

Being a formerly serious Type A personality, I didn't decide to knit scarves.  Oh, no.  I decided to knit afghans.  Yessirreebob.  I knitted a full dozen of them.  Plus half a dozen scarves and matching hats and one girl's poncho.  I was tying the fringe onto the last of the twelve blankets the night before the family Christmas gathering. 

My mother recovered, but I just kept knitting.  I had fallen in love with yarn.  Like those stories of people meeting their childhood sweetheart at their 25 year high school reunion and getting married, I fell in love with knitting after more than 30 years away from it. 

I was so much in love with knitting and fiber that yarn became my favorite souvenir when I travelled.  After my mother recovered, I decided to start using my hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles to take some really awesome family trips.  Problem was, I couldn't find a central place to find yarn shops in Paris, Florence, Venice, New York, Portland, London, Vienna, etc.  And so was born Planet Purl.

In 2008, I closed my law practice to launch Planet Purl and to spend my days with the happiest people on the planet -- knitters!  So welcome to my dream.  And thanks for being part of it.