XRK First Blogiversary

Dear Ann and Mo,

I wanted to use our blogiversary post to share with you how much Crossroad Knits has meant to me over the last year. XRK came along about 6 months after I moved to Philadelphia. It was so hard to move away from you, and I realize now how bad I was at the goodbyes that Summer. There were the teary farewells over dinner or sitting on the front porch, but I was in serious denial about leaving you.

The two of you were my go-to friends, the people to whom I could tell anything, the people with whom I could be all-me. The first two people I called when my father died. The two people who shared my love of food and laughed their way through the ins and outs of motherhood along with me. I grew to truly love your children, and admire your families. I was most at-home with you. You watched me grow into motherhood, and we enjoyed the luxury of time when we were home with infants, without carpools and committees to keep us busy.

I knew that this kind of friendship was rare, and that I would not easily find another kindred spirit here, especially in the more anonymous and spread-out suburbs, especially as we moved out of our baby years and into the elementary era. I was afraid that time and distance would change our friendship to the point that it was unrecognizable. We had such a day-to-day life together: an impromptu lunch or chance meeting at the farmers market, standing beside our cars in the carpool line, or hooking up at Crossroads Coffee and Ice Cream with a kid in tow, to knit and chat during a stolen hour in a busy day. Once I left, those interactions were gone, and I grieved that dimension of my life deeply.


We talked a lot on the phone, and we've visited several times over the past 18 months, but it is this blog that keeps me in your lives on a day-to-day basis. I see pictures of you, so I know what your hair looks like now. I see pictures of the growing kids, and am reminded of their silly expressions or their unique personalities that they had, even as babies. I've been a part of your home-renovation project and know where you are volunteering. We e-mail or talk because we have "blog business" to discuss.


I love to see what you are knitting, and drink up every detail of your creative process. I love seeing what yarns you choose and projects you attempt. I have this gauge of how your life is going by studying your knitting (or lack of it). It has been a vehicle to rejuvenate my creativity, and a way to meet a wonderful community of knitters.

But XRK has been a gift to me because I feel like we are meeting for knitting and chatting at Crossroads again, stealing moments out of our busy lives, just because we're friends. It is because of XRK that I still have you in my life in this day-to-day way, despite the distance.

And so I thank you for taking on this project together with me. Mo, your great idea to start a blog together has meant more to me than just being able to visualize what you are knitting. It has meant a deepening of our friendships and has reassured me enough of its endurance to finally begin to feel at home here in Philadelphia.

Lots of love,
Liz