Persistent Illusion » About Judy

Phoebe – RIP

I’m a ~~40-something~~ 50-ish single mom. I have one offspring, known here as #1 Son.

I live with my cats Captain Kidd and Moo Cow in a little house in a little neighborhood on the side of a little mountain next to a big city in the rainy Pacific Northwest. #1 Son lives near by.

Captain Kidd

I have a vaguely techie job that I don’t write about. I write about almost anything else that strikes my fancy. Mostly this blog has evolved to be about my adventures in the fiber arts, primarily knitting.

My Grandma knit and crocheted, and was a milliner in her youth. Her sisters, my Great Aunts, practiced knitting, crochet, tatting and quilting. The craft gene for some reason skipped my Mama, who could do none of those things.

I taught myself to crochet from the Child Craft Encyclopedia when I was about 8 or 9. I learned to knit as a 4-H project (my club consisted of “city kids”) when I was 12. I had dropped knitting for a long time in favor of crochet, but picked it up again a couple of years ago, lured by the growing number of local yarn shops in the greater Portland area, the amazing fibers now available, the cool new tools just waiting to be tried out and the need to keep my hands busy while riding in a car that my son was learning to drive.

Moo Cow

#1 Son is a ~~high school senior~~ ~~high school graduate~~ ~~college freshman~~ a hard working kind of guy. As well as working ~~part time~~ full time ~~as a dishwasher~~ ~~waiter~~ ~~sushi chef at a local restaurant~~ ~~a waiter at a pasta place downtown~~ ~~barrista at a local bakery~~ ~~building furniture~~ ~~delivering pizza~~ at various pursuits, he works full time promoting his band, Autistic Youth. (He’s in other bands, too, but this is the one he’s been in longest.)

One day when I was sick, and thus not expected by anyone to be actually doing anything productive, I thought about all of the methods for casting on toe-up socks and wondered if I could figure out a better way. Judy’s Magic Cast-On was the result.