17 December 09
Knitting Away
I don’t blog much about the fact that I now spend a good deal of time, mostly in the early morning, with a cat on my lap under a pair of knitting needles. I took a break from knitting for about 20 years but am back with a vengeance, which means all kinds of other things don’t get done.
This time, though, I knit socially too. This means I know that I’m not alone in my obsession. My social knitting revolves around a weekly group that meets, improbably, in a video store owned by a Salvadorean couple, he a master baker who used to work at the Austrian pastry shop in town, Konditorei. (This is bad for the waistline along with all this time I’m sitting on my rear so I usually restrict myself to Mayan hot chocolate.) My online social knitting group is much more vast, knowledgeable, and distracting than this. Knitting problems are shared and answered instantly by people with varying levels of authority.
There are reportedly millions of knitters in the United States. Many of them are under 30, rewriting stereotypes and sharing their design skills for free with the knitting community.
And then there’s Knitty . When this goes live every three months, servers tremble. The new one came out earlier this week; there are at least three things I’d like to make on there, two of them with my own handspun. Which is now piling up….
Previous: Archeology Next: Long Walk into Town
Wonderful to hear about all the knitting you are doing. I miss knitting and think often about the fun ride we took to Santa Clara with hundreds of other knitters. These days, my joints in my hands won’t let me get back into knitting with any seriousness or regularity. :(
These are beautiful, Alison! What a wardrobe you are creating!
I think it’s pretty awesome that there’s such a great network of knitters and other crafters out there! Also, I think neglecting other things in honor of knitting is completely appropriate! Happy New Year! Hope you’re well!
Hello,
Where are you located and do you have classes to teach techniques? I know how to knit but I would like to be a master :O)
Thanks,
Gita
Gita, Thank you! I am not a master! What I recommend you do is sign up for Ravelry: this is an online knitting forum with a huge number of members. You can learn ANYTHING on Ravelry. Ask a question about, say, a pattern, and within 10 minutes you’ll have 6 different people with answers.
There are thousands of patterns available, most of them free. Any technique you can think of (and probably many more you can’t) has a group with members with varying levels of expertise.
There’s a delay between when you sign up on Ravelry.com and when you can actually get in, but stick with it, it’s well worth it.