The Knitting Way is what came from the convergence of the knitting journeys of two women from very different backgrounds, whose paths first crossed and mingled at a Yarn Paradise. That's the "way" of the Knitting Way. Connection happens through knitting. Now, as your path crosses ours, we invite and welcome you to come along. That's really why we wrote the book.

So, where did we begin? Linda, an only child, was born and raised in a small apartment (where she says she believed water came from the superintendent and vegetables came from the vegetable store) in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, which was a Jewish Camelot. Although her family was not observant, she always felt her connection to her heritage and traditions as a Jew. After IBM hired her husband, they moved to Poughkeepsie, New York, with their two children in 1969. Ten years later she began Patternworks, without which this book would not have been written. And if she had not sold Patternworks in 2002, looking forward to more time with her three grandchildren, this book still would not have been written. So, it seems, a full cycle had to be completed.

At another time, Janice was born in Illinois, the oldest of five children. Her early life took her from Illinois to Florida, with stops in Oklahoma, Wyoming, California, and Texas (twice) in between. This young family of seven eventually stopped moving. She grew up in Florida, her later childhood spent on the beach and in a boat, with strong cultural ties to the Midwest and farms, steeped in church and Sunday school Christianity. Marriage and IBM brought Janice and her husband to New York thirty years ago where she eventually became a manager of the Patternworks store. And now, with four children and two grandchildren, she says she still bears those ties with a little bit of the Northeast thrown in.