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In memoriam: The Knitting Curmudgeon

When I first started reading knitting blogs, even before I had my own, I stumbled across the Knitting Curmudgeon. She was acerbic, she was funny as hell, she suffered no fools gladly, and she had absolutely no patience with hypocrisy. She also knew a hell of a lot about knitting.

She had a huge heart and a barbed tongue. People often didn’t like her because she told the truth, plainly, often painfully. But she loved her friends and she adored her family and she still mourned her husband Jimmy.

We were online friends at first, and then met in real life many times. We were part of a ragtag group of friends who loosely lived around the Philly/NJ/NY area and loved to knit. We met for lunch in New Hope and trawled fiber festivals and shows, especially Rhinebeck, which we all love(d).

Last year, I heard from her daughters that Marilyn was ill. Not “I have a cold” ill, but gravely ill, on a ventilator, with doctors stumped as to what was devastating her body and mind. This week, her daughters told us that Marilyn died.

I am still a bit shocked that Marilyn is gone. I am still a bit shocked that I will never read another pointed blog post, that I will never see her across a crowded fiber show floor, that I will never hear her boast about her amazing daughters or her adored Liz again.

She was the Dorothy Parker of knitting.
She was rare and handy.
She will be missed.

9 thoughts on “In memoriam: The Knitting Curmudgeon

  1. I am rather shocked. I had just checked her web page right before yours and the post from Sept. sounded like she had lots of things planned. She will be missed – hers was one of the first blogs that I made a point of reading from the beginning. Sorry for your loss. Deneise from KS

  2. Goodness. She was so snarky at times I hated her but I kept her in my blog feed because she was smart, well spoken, well rounded and had a heart. RIP Marilyn

  3. Terrible news. She was an amazing, unique, talented woman — one of those people who has such a larger-than-life personality that I knew who she was the minute I met her, even though I had only read her blog up to that point. Thank you for your beautiful tribute.

  4. Thank you for letting us all know. I always loved her knitting and life wisdom…and her snark. Even though she updated her blog much less frequently in recent years, I still followed. I appreciate knowing this so I can send love and light through the ether to all her family and friends.

  5. So sorry to hear that Marilyn passed away.
    It had been some time since I dropped in on her blog regularly, but I did try and see what was going on periodically.
    I’m still proud to say that she uninvited me to comment because I called out some knitting snobbery from some of her regulars. 🙂
    She will be missed.
    RIP Knitting Curmudgeon.

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