When you are knitting socks and sweaters and scarves, you aren’t just knitting. You are assigning a value to human effort. You are holding back time. You are preserving the simple unchanging act of handwork.
Knitters just can’t watch TV without doing something else. Knitters just can’t wait in line, knitters just can’t sit waiting at the doctor’s office. Knitters need knitting to add a layer of interest in other, less constructive ways.
The twitch above my right eye will disappear with knitting practice.
Knitting is a boon for those of us who are easily bored. I take my knitting everywhere to take the edge off of moments that would otherwise drive me stark raving mad.
Since I became a knitting humor writer, I seem to be understood a little better – at least for the purposes of social discourse.
I do know that there isn’t ever going to be a time when there aren’t any knitters.
The rules of Canadian engagement say that if we encounter a celebrity, we have to pretend we’re not encountering a celebrity.
The essay is one of my favourite forms of writing, and I feel like what’s inside is really personal, more so than with shorter pieces.
Hat head is a sad affliction wherein the chosen hat and the selected hairstyle are grossly incompatible. The unfortunate combination results in a condition that can be hidden only with the application of another hat.
I will resist the urge to underestimate the complexity of knitting.
Sweaters need to be imagined, dreamed over.
Some knitters say that they buy yarn with no project in mind and wait patiently for the yarn to “speak” to them. This reminds me of Michelangelo, who believed that every block of stone he carved had the statue waiting inside and that all he did was reveal it. I think I’ve had yarn speak to me during the knitting process, and I’ve definitely spoken to it. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong, or maybe my yarn and I aren’t on such good terms, but it really seems to me that all I say is “please” and all it ever says is “no”.
Maybe, just maybe, those six balls are a scarf and hat that get tucked away for years and long after I’m gone someone pulls them out and says, “Remember how Grammy was with all the wool? Remember how she knit all the time?” fingering the soft wool and pondering who I was and what I did while I was here.
I am so uncoordinated that it’s as if the day they were handing out physical prowess I was distracted at the fine motor skills wicket, probably by a knitting pattern, and missed out completely on whatever it is that lets people do standing-up things with their bodies.
A home without books is a body without soul.
It turns out that I will buy any yarn, even yarn I will never use, if the store discounts it by more than 50%. Do not be tricked, not all yarn is meant to be yours. No matter how good a deal it is.
Even if he doesn’t know a cable from a bobble, my mate can be my biggest cheerleader.
Did you know that there are $4,000 washing machines? Seriously. If a washer is $4,000 I want it to get the laundry out of my room and bring it back folded after it made me coffee told me it likes my hair.
You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance. – RAY BRADBURY.
I have not yet formulated a plan to force people to knit that is likely to be successful, but the one where I locked resistant people in a freezer filled with yarn and needles has promise, if I can work out the ethical issues.
I’m reasonably sure that Calvin Klein does not knit.