Knit On!

I’ve been knitting for 8 years, more than half my life, but have only recently discovered that I enjoy teaching people how to knit. After having made multiple scarves, a hat and a sweater, this year I became president of my high school’s knitting club. So far, twenty students have joined and the two meetings we’ve had have been fun and productive.  Suddenly students are walking down halls with balls of yarn and knitting needles in hand. In a few weeks, we’ll have our first knit-in when we will knit scarves to donate to a local homeless shelter.

Lots of people have developed a fondness for knitting, including Russell Crowe, Julia Roberts, Audrey Hepburn, & both Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt.  In fact, last May the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Home in Hyde Park, New York hosted a knit-in for knitters to make afghans for troops, VA hospitals, women’s shelters and others in need.

Here’s a humorous and true observation about knitters:

“Despite what we knitters know to be true, the non-knitting world somehow persists in thinking that a “knitter” looks a certain way. Most likely, this picture is one of an elderly woman, grandmotherly and polite, sitting in her rocking chair surrounded by homemade cookies and accompanied by a certain number of cats. In reality, a knitter today is just as likely to be young, hip, and male…  Several of today’s best knitting designers are men, and a knitter is as likely to have body piercings as homemade cookies. Despite our diversity, the tendency to be accompanied by a cat is an oddity among knitters that cannot be explained.” –Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much