I'm not a Granny yet!

Life's irritation number 6 -

Don't you just hate it when the world sees you as a stereotype!

Yes I knit but I'm not a Granny, nor do I knit because the Duchess of Cambridge knits, in fact I have been knitting since before she was born!

The knitting community has been twittering away this week about an article on the Guardian website entitled Knitting and Needlework: relaxing hobbies or seditious activities? You would think knitting was a peaceful hobby but people with very sharp sticks should not be upset. Here are a couple of responses from fellow bloggers Louise at Knit British and Kate at Woolwinding.

The first mistake the paper made was to use a photo of elderly women knitters gossipping over a garden fence as all of us in the knitting community know that knitters come in all shapes and sizes. I first knitted as a Brownie way back in the early 60's and have knitted in every decade since. I am far from in my dotage but when acting as a guide for the Great London Yarn Crawl last September I was the oldest. There are 4 million users worldwide of Ravelry the social network for knitters, spinners and weavers and if their 'avatars' are to be believed 12,000 of them are cats! And a fair few of them are MEN.

The next mistake was to say  that knitting is 'the relic of women's servitude'. I am not sure that women have ever been forced to knit, some like the Shetland Knitters have done so to support their family but in the 19th Century when early knitting books, like those available on line from the University of Southampton, were first published many women took up needlecraft in the same way as they learnt the piano to fill the hours until they married. Later during the war years women knitted to send some little piece of home to their men at the Front and with clothes rationing, one way to get a new outfit was to make it yourself. My Mother used to knit all my cardigans when I was a child but as manufactured knitwear became cheaper hand knitting was no longer a necessity, it has now become an active chose. 

To say that it 'is not relevant to the reality of modern women's lives' is an assumption which is not justified, with so many modern women taking up knitting as a means of self expression, for relaxation, to make garments that are unique or for any other of the many reasons knitters knit who can possible say that it is not relevant. And to think knitting is 'for women who have just too much time on their hands' could not be further from the truth. It is for women who have too little time on their hands, women who work, are mothers, have homes but who make time to do something that they really enjoy using yarn that they fall in love with!

And the writer should never have used the term 'revival', I have seen so many revivals during my knitting life that if I were a cat I'd be half way though my nine lives! Knitting has never been dead so hasn't needed to be revived, it has always been there carried on by dedicated few. The thing that has changed over the last few years is that knitting has become more social. Once an activity that I did alone at home and hardly ever talked about has turned into a group activity with Knit and Natter Groups everywhere you look. It is knitting that has given me and many many others the opportunity to write this and all the other knitting blogs around. Knit a longs (KAL's) are fun ways to join a group of other knitters to follow a pattern but to put your own mark on it with your individual use of yarn and colour. The camaraderie that has developed in the knitting community is something that other hobbies have enjoyed for years so why shouldn't we knitters have it too. A common interest encourages us to learn new techniques, stretch ourselves, write and publish our own patterns, move our craft onto another level.

I'm a Knitter and I'm proud.

And what's on my needles right now?

Well talking about KAL's, I'm knitting Miss Winkle by Martina Behm as part of Crafts From The Cwtch Spring KAL. The yarn is called Sea Deep and is hand dyed by Beth Sutherland of Luscious Creations. This is an enjoyable to knit narrow shawl/scarf with an unusual looped edge which I may have overlooked it it wasn't for this KAL.