 |
  |
|
Sharing the passion and soul of needlecrafts. |
|
FEATURED ARTICLES |
|
|
|
|
|
Sharing the passion and soul of needlecrafts. |
|
FEATURED ARTICLES |
|
|
Are you amazed by people’s reaction to your knitting? I am. Especially by those that seem to have a preconceived and somewhat stereotypical notion about knitters. In fact, I think you can tell a lot about someone from how they respond to your craft. These reactions tend to fall in several main categories. Let’s run through some of the variations, shall we? I think some might be familiar to you. The “Knitting is For Little Old Ladies” Type: We’ve all encountered this group. My husband’s among them. When we were engaged he said, “Knitting is like golf, it’s something you don’t do until your knees give out.” (Yes, I married him anyway, but he has at least learned to be tolerant.) These are the people who seem to have missed all the buzz about knitting and still think of their blue-haired grandmothers knitting toilet roll covers in a rocking chair. These are people you should NOT knit a sweater for. They don’t deserve it. The “I have a preconceived Notion About Knitters But I Won’t Own Up to it” Type: These people really belong to the previous category, but they are afraid to admit it and be branded as politically incorrect. I once had a date pick me up, and when he saw me knitting on the stoop as I was waiting, he said, “Boy Ann, you just don’t seem like the knitting type!” What did that mean, anyway? It meant that he made a judgment about what type of person I was, and this time-honored art didn’t fit somehow. It meant that that was our first and last date. The “I’m The Center of Any Universe” Type: You know the type, they seem to feel that your knitting during meetings or classes means you are not paying attention to them. Little do they know that knitting helps us listen more attentively and concentrate more, sometimes more than we care to. Besides, if our hands are moving we are less likely to fall asleep during their presentation. The “They Don’t Knit On My Planet” Type: This one kills me. These are the people you don’t know well, perhaps a co-worker, who say, “That’s really pretty. Can you make me one?” This is especially humorous when you are working on a sweater that takes 400 hours and you have spent $130 on yarn. The “Dazed and Confused” Type: I’ve encountered members of this group in business meetings as well. They just stare at your hands in a dazed fashion as if you are putting them under some form of hypnosis. This could prove to be useful. “You are getting very sleepy. You have the uncontrollable urge to give Ann a big raise…” Now, to be fair, not everyone’s reactions are annoying or negative. You can always tell a fellow knitter. Knitters find each other everywhere, and there is an instant connection. Within two minutes you are in an animated discussion of technique, new yarns, the new patterns on Knitty.com, and your favorite shops, leaving any non-knitters standing nearby baffled and lost. These conversations and connections are what make it all worth while, cause even though we often knit alone, we knitters yearn for group interaction with people who understand us, like a club or—dare I say it—a cult. The cult of knitting. But my favorite reactions are those I get from children. Either they completely ignore it, or they are wide-eyed and fascinated by knitting. They stand there with this mesmerized look on their faces and watch you as if you are performing magic. Sometimes they ask something like, “How do you do that?” Eventually they run off, but not before vindicating the art through their innocence and wonder, reminding us that it is still magic to take two sticks, and a piece of string and make a garment: that the glory is in the doing, not the having.
Ann Hagman Cardinal is a freelance writer and
the national marketing director for Union Institute & University. |
|
Home | About Us | Patterns | Archives | Subscribe | Share |Search | Advertise | Contact Us | Submit | Media |
|
|
Copyright Black Purl Magazine , All Rights Reserved |
|
