cwBlog

So last night at my new knitting group --

First, a digression. Back before I moved, I went to a knitting circle every Monday night at the Barnes & Noble in Holyoke, MA. It was a good group of knitters, ranging from novices and people who were happiest knitting St st scarfs to people who were actively looking for new things they hadn't tried before and downloading patterns off the scary Internet. Officially it ran from 6 pm to 8 pm; practically, it ran from whenever the first knitter showed up until the B&N staff chased the last knitters out, and even then, sometimes on warm summer nights we just settled down out in the parking lot to continue. It was one of the things I missed when I moved away.

So two weeks ago I finally stopped putting it off and went to a knitting circle that meets locally, in the West Branch of the Somerville Public Library, right near Davis Square. It was a bit of a nerve-wracking thing to go to a new knitting group: sometimes they're friendly, sometimes they're cliquish; sometimes they like having men around (for variety?), sometimes they feel threatened by men intruding into a women's space; sometimes the talk is about knitting and sports and cats and pets and where to go on vacation, and other times the talk is about boyfriends and husbands and how horrible men are. I had experience of both the positive and negative sort with my fellow knitters, and especially after my prior knitting circle, I was worried about the karmic payback -- I was sure I'd have to look long and hard before I found another good knitting circle.

Well, I'd like to note for the record that I was wrong.

Anyway, on to the story:

I noticed last night, when we were all sitting around the table in the children's room of the library, that there were really two threads of conversation. About half the knitters there were women of a certain age; one was knitting a sweater, another a hat for charity, another a scarf, another was swatching for a project. The rest of us were in our 20s to mid-30s: knitting squares for a blanket, socks, more socks, a festively loud overcoat sweater knit on huge needles with a tripled strand of worsted weight. The older women were talking about children and grandchildren, and sales at A. C. Moore and Michael's; the rest of us were talking about Rhinebeck, and Webs, and where to get good self-striping sock yarn. Periodically the conversations would converge, and we'd talk about cats and ice cream.

Now, this divide isn't universal. But I think it's an indicator of how knitting has changed. For instance, charity knitting: there are people out there who spend a considerable amount of time knitting socks and hats for people in need. But if you consider just the time and effort involved, this doesn't make any sense -- you can get beautiful wool socks at L. L. Bean, superwash merino ragg wool, for $8 a pair. Does it make sense to buy sock wool, which is likely to run at least $7-$8 for a pair's worth of sock wool, and then spend hours knitting it for a stranger? If the main goal is to keep other people's feet warm, no! But this is a recent development. Until comparatively recently -- within living memory -- the only way for people to get good socks was for somebody to knit them.

(Of course I realize that the act of charity knitting has spiritual and emotional benefits for the knitter and for the recipient, but none of them are tangible; and being a practical sort, I prefer to focus on things I can measure, like the warmth and comfort of wool socks compared to the warmth and comfort of no socks.)

Knitting has changed from something people did for practical reasons to something that people do for creative and expressive reasons. And it's made that change within living memory, and you can see the record of it if you pay attention.