So I’m sitting and knitting--in a doctor’s office, of course--enjoying the progress on my cowl, when a middle-aged gentleman sits down across from me. He stares for a second, then says, “Wow, people still do that anymore?”
He’s referring to my knitting, of course, not my ability to calmly sit in a plastic chair. I find this odd. If you ask me, more people are knitting than ever. I always want to wear a t-shirt that states “I was knitting BEFORE it was cool.” Not that I mind at all the vast selection of yarns and stores we have now, the handfuls of magazines and books, the artsy needles and celebrity knitters. I think we have craft choices now that our mothers would have craved. Maybe because I knit, I see knitting everywhere.
I was baffled by his view of my knitting as rare and, from his expression, anciently quaint. He actually likened it to his mother’s “tatting.” Not that tatting is bad--it’s gorgeous, and I’ve not idea how to do it--but I do think of it as an antique sort of craft. Not at all like knitting, which is downright poplar and, dare I say it, trendy. I want to feel artsy and hip when I knit, not like a leftover from another era, and this guy stared at me like I was something a time warp flux left behind.
What have you all experienced? Are people charmed when you knit in public? Impressed? Nostalgic? Comments, please...
Here’s my progress on the cowl--I’m thinking it’ll be done over the weekend.
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