You get it, right?  I mean, you love the feel of yarn running through your fingers.  You get that wave of gentle calm come over you as the needles click.  You fall in love with colours — madly, deeply, falling right into them.  You know exactly when I mean when I talk about snorgling the fibers.

Right?

When you’re surrounded by fiber-people all the time, it’s easy to forget that there are some people who aren’t.  They just aren’t.  Yarn and fiber form no part of their lives, factor not at all into their days…  I know, it’s so hard to wrap your head around.

But then, sometimes, you get a little reminder .  My sister helped us at the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival…  It was very kind of her, because she had no personal interest in the festival: she is not a knitter, she is not a fiber person at all.  And we knew that, so we decided that it would be best if my sister handled the money, while Natalie and I concentrated on answering questions about the yarns and discussing knitting projects.  As it turned out, the three of us worked very well as a team.

But I really didn’t have any idea how much my sister is not a fiber-person.   …Until some of the other vendors came up to look at our yarns.  They were so excited, petting them, snorgling them, negotiating who got this one and who got that one….  Exactly the way fiber-people do, exactly the way you and I do.

And after they’d left, so happy with their new yarn, I turned to my sister to share in the excitement that other vendors had liked my yarn so much   …and she looked back at me in complete confusion.  And it was then that I got that sharp reminder that not everyone is a fiber-person…

My sister said, “Why would they do that?  Don’t they have their own yarn?“

I was momentarily stunned.  Don’t they have their own yarn?!? She totally didn’t get it.

So I fired her.  Then I hired her back — at twice her wages.  I’m a good sister like that.