Knerdy Knitting
where spelling isn't as important as awesome

Me:  Hi Dad, how’s it going?

Dad:  Oh, fine.  Anything new and exciting with you?

Me:  Mostly I’ve been working on a baby sweater.

Dad:  For you?

Me:  No, for a baby.

Dad: I mean, for your baby.

Me: *flashes of horror at the thought of being pregnant* NO!  It’s for a friend’s baby!

In Dad’s defense, this was shortly after I gained twenty pounds, left grad school, and started knitting like a fiend.  So in his world view, I am clearly going to have a baby.

Sometimes I forget that knitting has cultural connotations.  And that others, even those closest to me, will make incorrect assumptions about who I am because of my knitting.  Knitting is old fashioned, and so they may assume I am traditional in other ways.  Knitting is a time consuming and costly way to obtain clothing, and so they may assume that I am rich and have a great deal of leisure time.  Knitting is the work of grandmothers, and so they may assume that I’m a nurturing, mothering, femme woman.

But knitting is just a tool, a technique.  It’s pulling loops of string through other loops of string using two sticks.  All these values come from the observers, not from the knitting itself.  Knitting can be anything.  It can be a statement against mass produced, mass marketed clothing.  It can be a medium for showing love and protective feelings.  It can be a way to kill time.   These are the meanings I find in my knitting.  Luckily for me, knitting is a creative processes that produces socks, not infants.