@pmhpesp5 , aww, thank you so much. I’m not sure about the artistic part, but I just love the making of things that are useful, and I hope that have some beauty to them as well. The making part is what I enjoy the most, and making things for those I love as well as for myself. When I was young, I made my own clothes which ironically, my sister in law did also, and both of us merged into quilting in our later years. Because I love animals, I got the sheep and goats before I learned how to do anything with their fleece, but there was a group called Spinner’s Flock in Chelsea MI (I had moved to MI from SoCalifornia in my 40s for work) and I joined and then I learned how to take care of my animals and do things with their fleece, including learning how to weave and to knit, so I came to it in middle age an fell in love with it. I even tried to shear my sheep myself with hand shears…that was not a success and the professional shearers back then only charged $6 an animal and took the fleece off in one usable piece whereas I, being overly cautious, afraid of hurting my sheep, clipped off little bits that were unusable. My animals were much happier to have a professional be done ridding them of their fleece in about 5 minutes, instead of me spending a few hours to get nothing much off them. But, you know, I was young and brave and wanted to do it all. I would have made a good farmer had I not been born in Los Angeles and raised in the city. I loved my little 4 acre “hobby farm.” It was a respite from working in high tech.

I’m so sorry about your neck. So many things happen to our bodies as we age. I have lumbar spinal issues but I adapt. I have a wonderful Swedish all terrain rollator that I use to tie my dog to and we walk a mile on our trails every morning where I now live in New Mexico. I use a cane for very short distances and a small indoor rollator if I’m going grocery shopping with my husband who likes to “man the cart” so I need something to use to help me walk naturally, or to walk in a mall or a big box hardware store. The spinal issues affect my legs so that it feels like walking through quicksand without using a mobility aid to take the pressure off the spine. And I do online chair yoga through YogaVista TV. Adapt, adapt, adapt. My husband is not a collector of stuff although his wardrobe which includes hiking and tennis wear and a variety of shoes and boots, is much larger than mine. He is good about purging though. I also have too many books but we have a little lending library in a tree in our community and I am good about going through my books and leaving a few every month. I have too many cookbooks and am slowly giving the ones that I simply enjoyed reading but haven’t really cooked from, away. Those go fast in the little lending library!

I hope that your neck improves along with your knitting so that it’s comfortable to knit again for you. Knitting is one of the more soothing activities I think…well, until you discover that you’ve made a mistake and then…not so soothing anymore!