So, last week, I spent the hours of 9am-3pm teaching 11 young girls, ranging in age from 5-14, many aspects of Fiber Art. They learned how to finger knit, finger crochet, knit and purl, macrame and how to turn recycled wool sweaters into art and accessories. They made their own needles, knitting bags, and turned out scarves, belts, ipod holders and purses. They felted raw fiber into beads and made their own clay beads to use in their macrame bracelets. It was a very successful week! So much so, that they had me marching them down with felted coffee cup holders that they made for the superintendant and principal (entirely on their own idea-I had nothing to do with it at all) in the hopes of convincing them to have a year-round "Knitters Club"-with me as their instructor. I know the girls had a great time b/c they told me so-repeatedly, as did their parents. But their parents also told me something alarming that I never really even considered, let alone thought about until last week.
One of the mothers had called me to ask if her child could stay on for the 2nd session b/c "she loves knitting with you so much." I, of course, said yes!! This is all that I wanted-to show the girls how fun and creative the world of fiber arts is and how summer can't possibly be boring once you know how to use yarn in many ways. My goal was to present many different aspects of the fiber arts world and hopefully one of those areas would click for each girl. They would latch onto knitting with their fingers, with needles, or even felting and that would be their go-to craft. It worked!! The younger girls ate up the yarn I provided for them and must've knit hundreds of yards of finger-knitted scarves. It actually got comical by the end of the week, b/c they were so proud of their knitting that they wore all of their projects at the same time. So cute The older girls banged out project after project on their needles with one of them making 3 Itouch holders in two days!!!.....But...I digress....this mother who called, told me that both of her girls were loving my class so much that they really want me to host the knitters club at school in the fall. I told her that I was working on a plan for the club and would talk to the superintendent soon about it. She then told me that her oldest daughter, who is going into 5th grade, "is worried about her friends making fun of her for knowing how to knit." "Whaaaattttt????" was my reply. She went on to say, "You know there is a stygma attached to knitting, I just can't believe that my daughter has picked up on it already." I was dumbfounded. Knitters, crocheters out here-do you know of this stygma?? I must really be naiive b/c I seriously never thought about it. Ever. I tried to defend us to this mother over the phone, saying that so many celebrities knit nowadays so I'm sure that isn't the modern thought of today, but then I got slammed again by another parent. She came in and said, "I used to crochet but these crafts are such a dying art. No one really does them anymore. Too bad it's uncool. Maybe you're doing this will bring it back for these young girls." Ok-someone wake me up from this bad dream-haven't these people seen or read of Julia Roberts knitting? Uma Thurman visiting Rhinebeck to shop for yarn and fiber? Have they not noticed the umpteen blogs there are out there completely devoted to this craft?
I went home stunned by all this and attempted to talk to my husband, who informed me that he always knew there was some sort of social stygma associated with knitting. He said, "C'mon, even our friends have asked you why you knit b/c they thought only grandmothers did it." Now he is right-I did get that a bit when I first started bringing around my knitting to weekend trips and such, but that quickly was squelched I thought, when I turned out pretty cool projects as gifts for them and started selling handknits at high-end boutiques in the area.
So, even as I sit here now, pondering all this makes me upset and feeling a little bruised up emotionally. Why on earth would such an innocent beautiful craft be subject to societal ridicule in this day and age? It's just plain crazy to me and makes me really feel cynical towards mainstream societal viewpoints. In other words, I'm just plain pissed off about it all....
