A homespun craft grows in popularity and sophistication
Princeton Packet
There’s a long, long “before” on the subject of knitting — and a dramatically different “after.” If ever a handicraft enjoyed a renaissance, this is it.
“Knitting” for years has suggested either grandmotherly types producing baby blankets or the earnestly misshapen lumpy, bumpy sweaters that practically everyone seems to have made at least once, then proudly presented to boyfriend or spouse.
Mrs. Weasley, in the Harry Potter series, exemplifies the well-intentioned knitter, producing the dreaded annual Christmas sweaters for her children (“always maroon” for Ron) and Harry. Absolutely nothing magical about those creations.
Poles apart from Mrs. Weasley are today’s knitters, whose sophisticated work in fashion yarns and luscious hues are desired and sought after, often without dignity or discretion, by non-knitters — the Muggles of the handicraft world.
Knitting is no longer the simple enterprise it once was. Just as the choices now available in breakfast cereals, crackers, socks and cosmetics — virtually everything — have expanded to a consumer-exhausting extent, so too have the once-limited simple materials for the once-simple act of knitting.
Traditional knitting gear consisted of solid-colored yarn and plastic needles in a few sizes, and with these, knitters turned out sweaters, socks and afghans. These days, knitting materials, imported or domestically produced, go far beyond the basics of wool, cotton and acrylic.
There’s also silk, cashmere, alpaca, bamboo, soy, ribbon and braid, as well as quiviot — fiber from the downy undercoat of the musk ox. Self-patterning yarn for socks (think stars and stripes) stand out in the novelty division. Also out there are multi-colored (often within one ball) and even hand-painted yarns, and some that are blended with contrasting fabrics, shot through with lurex or studded with sequins.
Did we say yarns can be very, very expensive? A knitter can spend up to $100 a ball. Some cashmeres cost $55 a skein. (Yarn from a loosely coiled skein is rolled into a ball.)
And, to work these exotic (and often pricey) materials, there are straight and curving needles of all imaginable sizes, some made of rare woods and some that light, either at the tips or along their whole length — the better to “keep on knittin’” at the movies, in a car, in a blackout …
Eat your heart out, Madame Defarge!
Glenmarle Woolworks, at Princeton Shopping Center, could serve as a microcosm of what has happened in the world of knitting. Owner Lee Good Hurford says that, like so much else, this business changed on 9/11.
Fourteen years ago, when she opened, she remembers that people were busy “being corporate” and if they knitted at all, they were “closet knitters.” Then came 9/11, and starting that very day, when in fact there was a run on her store, she has had “a totally different customer base.”
Suddenly, people needed to relieve their great stress and relax; they wanted to stay home and watch TV. They began to knit with a vengeance. Celebrities started knitting too, and as young and beautiful people took it up, knitting became hip.
Ms. Hurford now counts corporate travelers and kids among her customers. And men knit, too, she says. Surgeons and musicians enhance manual dexterity that way, and some groups meet in coffee shops and homes.
Gradually, KIP — or “knitting in public” — has become the thing to do. And women knit in the darndest places, even in church, Ms. Hurford reports. One customer moved from the back to the front of her church, knitting all the way and growing a circle of other knitters.
“As a group, women have a hard time sitting still and doing nothing,” she believes. No sooner does a woman sit down with nothing to do than she must write a note or make a phone call or … ? Knitting while watching TV or at a movie — or church — can foster concentration and in calling for both artistry and precision, it involves both right and left brain processing.
The benefits of knitting only begin with whatever might be made. It’s relaxing, it fosters a sense of belonging and makes for a good bonding experience — “a microcosm of what a community used to be,” Ms. Hurford says, summing up: “It’s more expensive than buying (finished knitwear); less expensive than most psychiatrists.”
The owners of two other “knitting stores,” each also uniquely comfortable and comforting, agree. Knitting is a “nesting, homing thing,” believes Rachel Herr, co-owner of Pins and Needles, on Chambers Street in Princeton.
And Susan Olson, of The Woolly Lamb in Pennington, adds that “you can take it anywhere.” One of her customers “got a whole sleeve done” during a Little League game.
Displayed around all three shops, finished sweaters and other garments sing a silent siren song. In unbelievably soft shades, the fluffy baby sweaters alone are incentive to take up needles, even without recipients in the picture. If these finished products are tagged at all, it’s not with prices of course, but with specifics about the pattern they came from.
Knitting’s resurgence has caused yarn companies to respond with fashion yarns not available to the public until now, Ms. Hurford says. Kits for making sweaters and coats pull together color and fabric combinations that look artful and customized. Even the language of knitting has been updated, she notes: Old-fashioned “afghans” have given way to “throws” or “carriage blankets,” for instance.
The end result of this revolution: knitting shops where visitors can walk around and pet the yarns as well as the nice dogs sometimes in residence. There are nooks and crannies, tables and comfy chairs, where they can browse the countless books and magazines supplementing myriad Web sites they can visit from home. They can chat and they can knit.
Each of these stores offers classes and individual help. Open houses and group sessions are regularly scheduled, as well as special events. For the newcomer, it could be as simple as picking a shop, dropping in and getting the feel of the place, and then, very likely, getting started. In a candy shop or ice cream parlor, you want to taste all the pretty things. In a yarn store, you want to caress the skeins: The colors are so delicious, the textures so surprising — they’re “Rocky Road,” plus. And why should flowers and fruit have all the still-life fun? How about a grouping of multi-colored yarn skeins and balls, accented with rosewood and zebra wood needles?
Glenmarle Woolworks, Princeton Shopping Center, 301 N. Harrison Street, Princeton. (609) 921-3022. Summer hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5; Wednesday and Thursday til 7 p.m. Closed Sunday and Monday. Open house Thursday 5-7 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m.- 1 p.m. The fall class list is coming soon.
Pins & Needles, 8 Chambers Street, Princeton. (609) 921-9075 or visit www.pinsandneedles.biz. Summer hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5; Thursday till 8 p.m. Closed Sunday (in August only) and Monday. Classes and a Sunday seminar (a new technique each week) start in the fall.
The Woolly Lamb, 7 Tree Farm Road (just off Route 31), Pennington. (609) 730-9800. Summer hours: Monday-Saturday, 10-5; Thursday till 8 p.m. Closed Sunday. Fall class list will be available after Labor Day.