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Photograph by Erin Day
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Don't Needle Me: New Knitter Charlene Alcanices picked up the
hobby two months ago. The project she is working on may end up as a
scarf. She is part of a growing trend of women who are enjoying the
craft as a way to relax, meet new people in sewing groups or simply chat
with friends. |
Common Threads: Knit One,
Purl Two
By
Beth Walker
Julia
Roberts does it, and Cameron Diaz has picked it up. It's not yoga, studying the
cabala or the Atkins diet—it's knitting. Younger generations are
rediscovering their grandmother's handicraft with a twist. The abundance of
novelty yarns—what knitter Jan Hurwitz calls "bubbles, fur, flutter and
glitz"—the celebrity knitting trend and the tried-and-true method of women
teaching their friends has new knitters and crocheters joining the ranks of the
yarn-aholics.
For 50-year-old Hurwitz, a Willow
Glen resident and owner of Knitting Arts in Saratoga, the love affair began
before knitting was "in."
She learned to sew at age 12 but was
only introduced to knitting by a co-worker about 10 years ago.
"It struck a spark in me," she says.
Hurwitz began knitting on her lunch break at a software company and says it
quickly became the best part of her day.
"It's like therapy and gives you the
feeling of being centered," she says.
While knitting and crocheting allow
those like Hurwitz a way to unwind, the activity also creates a sense of
community among women, she adds.
"Knitting becomes a medium to
communicate," Hurwitz says. A group of knitters who know nothing about one
another have an automatic connection with fellow knitters or crocheters. After
spending two to three hours enjoying the knitting process and exchanging tips,
the conversation easily shifts to more personal topics like family, she says.
"It's the way women have always
supported each other," Hurwitz says. She adds that it harkens back to the days
of quilting bees and sewing circles.
One group of five women with diverse
interests met through a class at Hurwitz's store and "had such a ball" that they
continue meeting regularly, she says.
Rather than just a hobby to decorate
the home, Hurwitz says, knitting has become an art form in which color, texture
and fiber come together in a final product.
"It's the whole process of having
the yarn move through your fingers," she says. "It's a repetitive motion like a
mantra, and the beauty is visual and tactile."
While Hurwitz loves a sparkly scarf
or a hip poncho, she also likes to knit the traditional cable sweater, prizing
the variety of patterns and materials to work with, she says.
Whether knitters prefer the latest
patterns from Vogue Knitting, a cable sweater or a crocheted afghan
depends on their sense of style and who they're knitting for, Hurwitz says.
"An older person might have used
traditional yarns all their life because that's what they're used to," she adds.
And while some knitters conform strictly to traditional methods like an online
knitting chat group Hurwitz belongs to, others are more flexible.
The chat group, Knitting Beyond the
Hebrides—islands northwest of Scotland—believes there must be 10 stitches to the
inch. But Hurwitz isn't as stringent. Her knitting philosophy is simple: "Create
something that gives you joy in making it."
Craft Craze
Along with the pleasure discovered
in the craft comes the desire to pass on the tradition, making the activity
cross-generational, Hurwitz says.
"We see a fair amount of moms and
daughters and some families with three generations," she adds.
Thirty-eight-year-old Peri Bassett
learned to crochet—which uses one needle called a crochet hook—as a child from
her mother and studied knitting—using two straight needles—in a book 20 years
ago. A mother of three children, she enjoys knitting for them and has already
taught her 8-year-old daughter to knit.
"She's made a Barbie dress and a
mohair purse," Bassett says.
Besides sharing an interest with her
daughter, she says knitting helps relieve stress.
"When I need to regroup, I knit
more," Bassett says. "It's a bit of an addiction."
Then there is Dominica Gotelli, a
41-year-old Willow Glen resident, who enjoys talking about her knitting passion
with other enthusiasts.
"Everywhere you go, you see people
knitting," she says. "The other day I saw someone knitting in the window and I
wanted to stop the car and run in and talk about it."
Part of a needlework group called
Stitch N' Bitch, Gotelli laid aside her cross-stitching and picked up knitting
two years ago after she learned a friend was making hats for parents at Good
Samaritan Hospital who had lost their infants.
"It's a neat gift to give the
parents," she says.
Gotelli says her dedication has
grown to where she knits almost daily. It's done either at home before she goes
to bed, while meeting friends on Sunday afternoons at Orchard Valley Coffee in
Campbell or when she goes to her 87-year-old neighbor's house.
"My husband says, 'Can you take your
face out of that?'" says Gotelli, laughing.
She says she turned her aunt and
five other friends into "very religious" knitters.
"It's beyond the point where I can
help them fix it if they get stuck," she says.
Although she's relatively new to the
activity, the social knitting culture is what she enjoys.
"We meet at someone's house and have
popcorn and lemonade," Gotelli says. "It's like the old days. It's a real
throwback to meatloaf and Betty Crocker."
Although knitting used to be
considered a traditional homemaking skill, "it's a cool thing for young girls to
know and take through their whole life," she says.
"Those cute little hats you buy from
Urban Outfitters for $40, you can make for $12," Gotelli says.
She adds that the sweaters that
Santana Row's Anthropologie store is now selling have a homespun, retro look
that hand knitters can create themselves.
To fund her knitting habit, Gotelli
works one day a week at Knitting Arts, where employees receive store discounts.
She also searches for old knitting magazines at garage sales.
"It's creative, you can bring it
anywhere, and it's fun to show off," Gotelli says.
Healthy Habit
She notes that knitting appeals to
all age groups: "The clienteles are from 8-year-old girls to the nuns to the hip
20-year-olds to the gals in their 40s like me."
When Gotelli went to the beach with
her son's class on the last day of school, she says 10 of the 30 mothers were
knitting.
For Ann Leever, 57, of Willow Glen,
all it took was a friend's example and a student newspaper article to inspire
her to return to her yarn and needles. She taught herself to knit in high school
in the 1960s, making sweaters, scarves, afghans and leg warmers. But her
unfinished projects sat untouched in her closet for the last 20 years, until
this summer.
On a day-long car trip with another
couple in June, Leever says, her friend pulled out a long, skinny scarf with
yarn like she'd never seen before.
But it wasn't until she read in the
De Anza College newspaper La Voz —De Anza is the community college where
she also works—that knitting had become the new college fad that she was spurred
on to go looking for the "luscious, yummy yarns that are available now," she
says. "These are not your mother's yarns."
Leever likes to knit because of the
variety of yarns and beautiful, smooth bamboo needles, she says. "It might sound
silly, but for me it is a form of therapy and meditation all in one."
Amanda Weingarten also finds
knitting soothing.
"It has a sneaky, subtle meditative
quality that really helps me relax," says the 32-year-old, who lives in Willow
Glen. "I'm amazed that clicking those sticks together can potentially yield
something beautiful."
Weingarten learned the rough basics
from a woman at a yarn store called The Knitting Room on Hillsdale Avenue before
going on a flight to England five years ago.
She wanted to keep herself occupied
on "a painfully long and daunting plane ride," she says. But she adds that the
days of knitting aboard planes are definitely over because of stricter security
measures and needles being viewed as potential weapons.
Weingarten says she prefers
traditional scarf patterns, but likes selecting trendier yarn. Many of her
friends have already submitted requests for scarves, she says.
Even when friends and family members
cease wanting knitted items, it's a lifelong skill that is hard to give up.
Women at the Willows Senior Center
on Lincoln Avenue can often be found working on projects that are donated to
various convalescent homes.
"Our families have all the afghans
they want, but we like to crochet, so we do it for a good cause," says
72-year-old Lee Billings.
The group called Volunteers for
Others consists of approximately 20 members who meet at the senior center on
Mondays between 9 a.m. and noon to knit, crochet and sew for other seniors using
only donated materials, says leader Dorothy Register, 84.
"It keeps us out of mischief,"
Dorothy Macafee says.
Mary Senkarik says the group is a
great source of support for the seniors who attend.
"You don't have to stay home
watching TV or waiting for your children to call," says the 75-year-old. "We
still have a lot of years and intelligence."
Creative Comfort
It also contributes to other people.
"You put happiness into it," says
Senkarik, as she holds a lap robe she's crocheting, "and it continues to the
next person."
While knitting and crocheting is
considered a new pastime for the younger crowd today, in her generation,
needlework was expected, she says.
Senkarik remembers her mother
scolding her for not crocheting to show she was a lady when her future husband
came to call.
"You had to show your qualifications
to sew, knit and cook," she says.
Patti Thorp, 64, doesn't attend the
group that meets at the senior center, but has a five-day-a-week date to crochet
with a widowed neighbor.
"We just chitchat," she says. "It
gives her something to do so she's not alone."
Thorp learned to crochet in 1970
from her co-workers at Memorex on their lunch break.
"It's fun. I find it relaxing and do
it as my husband drives," she says.
Thorp knows that crocheting is
something that appeals to a broader variety of people than the grandmother
stereotype.
Her husband even tried to pick it up
in the hospital until he became embarrassed when a nurse walked in, she says.
Even Thorp's 13-year-old grandson
has tried to learn.
Men can be as good as women, she
says, citing an older gentleman who works at The Knitting Room who knits and
crochets.
Ageless Appeal
Knitting actually originated with
fishermen who wove nets to fish and garments to keep themselves warm, says
Knitting Arts general manager Leigh McRae.
Hurwitz says that both genders and a
broad customer base from age 6 to 90 years old show that the art of knitting is
timeless.
But she adds, it's heavily weighted
in the 20s and 30s age bracket.
She says her employees recognize an
avid knitter by whether or not they have a "stash" of unused yarn.
"We all laugh, because they confess
and feel better and then buy more," she says.
That's the way it went in her life.
After she left her job at Portal
Software as the vice president of technical support three years ago to spend
more time with her 8-year-old son, knitting became a bigger part of her life.
She had an entire room at home full of yarn, and she started working at the yarn
store where she shopped in Saratoga—the Braid Box, which became the Knitting
Arts, now owned by Hurwitz, who bought the business, changed the name and moved
it across the street.
While owning a business occupies
much of Hurwitz's time, she still likes to steal some private moments to knit
each day.
"My favorite is in the morning, with
a cup of coffee in the green chair with my cats," she says.
It's the simple comfort and
creativity that makes the activity appeal to many, she says. And although
knitting's resurgence and celebrity appeal has made the craft popular and
fashionable again, for Hurwitz it is a whole lot more.
"It's an integral part of life," she
says. "I can't go a day without it." |
