Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Where People Knit

It's fascinating to me the places and times that people pull out their knitting.  I knit at home between chores, after dinner, or while helping the kids with their homework.  Other people knit at baby's naptime, or on their lunch hour, or waiting at the doctor's office.  Older women used to knit in the back pews of church when I was a kid.  WOW!  One of my friends knits at her daughter's swim practice.  It's 80+ degrees in there and humid, but she's happy with a lap full of wool.  I don't get it, but it works for her.

I read a story by a friend of mine about how she knits during dialysis, and she spends that time knitting for charity.  Spending her time thinking about people who are less fortunate makes those hours feel much more worthwhile.  She's a saint, no doubt about it.  I love that her hobby makes a time when she could easily feel sorry for herself into a gift of love.

There are also reports of musicians knitting between takes of music videos, and actors knitting on the set.  Not in their trailers, mind you, but right out in the open.  I wonder if  they say to the director, "Hold on.  I just have to finish this row..."

In Montana, one of my girlfriends can see cowboys on horseback hearding sheep and goats up the mountain's grazing flats outside her office.  She swears they knit in their down time during the summer.  Being a cowboy doesn't pay much at all.  I'm guessing being a cowboy is chilly work in the Cascade Mountains in the winter, and with those sheep in front of them all the time, I guess it makes sense.  It's the last thing I'd imagine in a cowboy's knapsack, though...

In the Andes, men are the principal knitters, and they tend to knit while walking.  They load up their burros, put their knitting stuff in pockets on the front of their sweaters, and knit for miles while they walk to and from market.  I don't think I could knit and walk without bumping into stuff or messing up the pattern, let alone manuever a burro over a mountain to and from market while knitting.  Yeesh!

Where do you knit?  Where are some interesting places you've seen people knitting?  Have you knit in a spot where people looked at you funny?  Where?

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