So, let’s talk about knitting.

Why is knitting something that is associated with grandmas, which are associated with being old? Neither of those things is a given.  All knitters are not grandmothers and all grandmothers are not old.  I’ve known women who have become grandmothers by age forty.  Forty is not old by anyone’s standards. Nonetheless, the stereotype of an “old lady” is a grandmotherly-type woman spending her day in a rocking chair knitting the hours away.  You know…this doesn’t sound so bad to me.

I learned how to knit in a seventh grade home economics class.  I made a beautiful six-foot long fluorescent garter stitch scarf.  The number of stitches varied on each row depending on dropped stitches, split stitches, and random loops of yarn that became stitches.  I can’t remember whether or not I actually wore the scarf, but I do vividly remember making it as I learned to knit. I was thirty before I started knitting again and I haven’t stopped since.

I think that the primary reason that knitting is considered something that grandmothers do is because home economics (cooking, sewing, knitting) stopped being required courses in school shortly after I had it.  Children were no longer being taught to knit so only the older generations, the grandmothers, knew how to knit and thus it became known as a “grandma thing.”

Knitting probably originated in the Middle Wast around 1000 CE.  It made its way to Europe in the thirteenth century.  At that point its popularity spread.  Since then it has bounced back and forth between being a means of making extravagant things for the well-to-dos, a way for peasants to make money, and a practical skill necessary to make essential items for soldiers.   Before the 1980’s knitting was basically a practical skill; it was as important to know how to knit as is was to cook.  Someone had to knit sweaters, hats, mittens, scarves and socks.  If these things weren’t handknit, they didn’t exist, so someone in the family had to know how to make them.

And then came mass-produced machine-made “knitted” items.  This development is what led to knitting no longer being taught in the schools.  It was no longer a necessary skill.  Machines could make things much faster than could human hands.   Yarn manufacturers went out of business and local yarn shops closed.

Thankfully, knitting experienced a resurgence in the 1990s, but as a hobby rather than as a practical life skill.  This is when I decided to seriously take up knitting. Memories of my six-foot orange scarf still lingered.  Subconsciously, I did not want that to be my knitting legacy.  In the early 90s, my girls were little.  I could knit for them.  Sweaters for them were small and didn’t take long; and the girls were too young to be critical.  As they grew, so did my skills as a knitter.  Though after about age eight they weren’t keen on wearing handknit sweaters or socks (I don’t understand the socks), they did wear the hats and mittens I made for them on through high school.  In fact, they still do today.  They both know how to knit, but neither has embraced it as an obsession hobby like their mother.

Surprisingly, at least to me, I was the only knitting mom in my girls’ circle of friends when they were growing up.  This led to me making 36 hats for the two high school girl’s soccer teams one year.  It started as two, one for each of my girls.  They then cam home and said, “So and so wants to know if you will make them a hat like mine.”  I was happy to do that.  What’s another hat.  And then there was another that wanted a hat.  And another.  And another.  You see where this is going…The girls were all most appreciative of their handmade hats so I was happy to do all of the knitting.

I offer another story for contrast.

A mom came up to me in the school parking lot and asked if I would make her daughter and her daughter’s best friend matching scarves for Christmas.  I inquired as to what kind of scarves she wanted.  She explained that they were multi-colored stripes “like they have at Old Navy.”  I then asked her why she didn’t just buy the ones at Old Navy if she wanted me to make scarves “exactly like” these.  She said, “They are $10 each.  I figure you can make them a whole lot cheaper.”  Nope.  Nope I can’t.  And I didn’t.

As I’ve gotten older, my knitting has changed.  I do tend to make more practical things.  I’m not drawn anymore to making the fancy shawl that I’ll probably never wear but want to make just because the pattern is interesting and challenging.  I make things that people have specifically asked for or items that can be donated to charity.  I make what I need – socks, hats, blankets, scarves.  I haven’t even made a sweater recently, though I am thinking of making a cardigan this winter.

Perhaps it’s the knitting of primarily practical things that qualifies as grandmotherly knitting.  If so, that’s OK.  My head, hands, and feet will be nice and warm as I sit in my rocking chair knitting my days away.

I guess it is up to all of us grandma types to teach the younger generation how to knit and, more importantly, why they should want to knit.

Here is good read along those lines;

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-hannah-grufferman/learn-to-knit-_b_7146404.html