All Wound Up: The Yarn Harlot Writes for a Spin

by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

It is mind boggling to me that, in a culture where the average person spends four hours a day watching TV, knitting is perceived as doing less than nothing.

Knitting and yarn are absolutely mood-altering substances,

We are the only species that aspires. The only species that dreams of making beautiful things. That dares to try to be better than we were before, to aim higher, to cable where once we could only do garter stitch.

The longer it takes you to make something, the more valuable it is.

I can always tell that I’ve misstepped when I ask them if I look okay and they say, “It depends. Are you leaving the house?”

I have knit it, I have kept it, and I love it.

The truth is that knitters have two wardrobes: the one that is their clothes, and the one that is the product of dreams, skill, hope, or possibly a 50 percent off yarn sale.

The construction of crochet means that a machine can’t do it, and hasn’t ever yet.

I knit when I worry, to help use up the time and space, and so that my vivid imagination doesn’t add fuel to the fire. I knit when I’m stressed, to help keep the peace, and so that I don’t make bad situations worse.

I do not knit. I am a knitter, and knitting is not something I do, it is a personality trait, and without my knitting, I would cope less well.

Washington Irving said, “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.… They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, and of unspeakable love.”