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The place felt like the Barneys New York warehouse, not a yarn store. Where
were the ugly acrylic yarns? Where was the gray-haired lady pushing bad sweater
patterns?
When the Craft Yarn Council of America sponsored a ''Knit Out'' in Union
Square in October, 7,000 people showed up. Charlotte Quiggle, the former program
chairwoman of the Big Apple Knitters Guild, who helped put on the event, said
the instructors in the teaching area literally had to push people back. ''I
don't want to say knitting is in vogue,'' she said, ''but it's sort of the 'it'
craft right now.''
Women dressed in business clothing can be seen knitting away on the subway
and in airports, and even at Starbucks, lost in their work as others juggle
coffee and books. It is not unique to New York, either. Membership in the
Knitting Guild of America has increased by 10 percent in three years, said its
founder, Carol Wigginton. Actors like Julia Roberts and models like Amber
Valletta and Stella Tennant, whose jobs are laden with downtime to fill, have
become hooked on knitting. At L'Atelier, a yarn store in Santa Monica, Calif.,
Leslie Stormon, an owner, said: ''It's getting busier and busier as the years
have gone on. And younger and younger.''
One of her clients is Monica Lewinsky. She knitted through President
Clinton's impeachment hearings, staying out of sight of the press and public,
and has since designed a knitting bag for sale to hold skeins and needles.
College students are taking up knitting with fervor. Knitting circles have been
formed at Southern Oregon University and Sarah Lawrence College.
''Some people knit while they're studying,'' Catherine Shu, a freshman at
Sarah Lawrence, said. ''I knit while watching 'The Simpsons.' ''
I have been fascinated by the idea of taking two sticks to loop yarn into a
sturdy fabric since I was in 4H, when I was 10. Like cooking and building,
knitting is a survival craft: it is tactile and has the same magical qualities
as rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. Three months ago, I decided to
finally learn and signed up for a class at the Yarn Company. Jordana Merlis, an
owner, 30, wearing smart glasses and great clothing, took my name and said there
was a monthlong wait.
I decided to pick up the craft now because I thought knitting would be a way
to escape and a way to work a little peace into my life. Besides, I wanted one
of those of-the-moment knit ponchos and wasn't going to pay $300 at a NoLIta
boutique for it. Fashion has largely driven the resurgence of knitting. It began
two seasons ago, said Ann Regis, an owner of Gotta Knit in Greenwich Village,
when Yohji Yamamoto showed big chunky knits. Alexander McQueen weighed in, too,
with a huge, exaggerated knit sweater that looked like a stretched out sock made
for a giant.
Other designers have followed. From Barneys to downtown boutiques, shelves
are crammed with expensive hand knits this season. Claire Blaydon, a designer on
Mott Street, reconstructs old sweaters to give them new innovative shapes. Down
the block at Janet Russo, they commission a home knitter to make hats for the
store. Catherine Malandrino, a designer and an owner of Catherine on Broome
Street, carries knit accessories like bags, hats and scarves and specializes in
oversize knit shawls.
''I think people are tired of looking like they're cloned,'' said Ms.
Malandrino, who contracts 50 knitters here and in Europe to make her designs.
Buying a unique hand-knit sweater is an act of defiance against companies like
the Gap and Banana Republic, who some feel have essentially reduced the fashion
of the masses to seasonal uniforms.
Now, even the mass merchants have caught on to the trend. Many chain stores
and catalogs sell funky-looking knits, and this fall even the Gap sold sweaters
with the label ''Knit by Hand.'' Only the fine print revealed that all the
quaint knitting actually takes place in China. When the buying public got the
message that knitwear didn't have to mean another boring sweater, but could be
more creative, amateur knitters surfaced in droves.
''I was seeing knits in stores everywhere, but they're too expensive,'' said
Thyrza Meulens, 31, who got started knitting at the ''Knit Out'' in Union
Square. Knitting has given her an artistic outlet, she said, and a way to
duplicate what she sees in the stores. She has almost finished a sweater and a
gray mohair scarf.
I took my lesson at the Yarn Company in October. Within five minutes, Ms.
Merlis had me and three other young women knitting. It wasn't pretty. My hands
were rigid, and the needles felt like fat paintbrushes that I had to use to
paint a coin-size portrait. That poncho seemed far in the distance.
But yarn stores know how to soften the frustrations of new knitters and to
get us past that first typically deformed sweater. ''We steer them toward
instant gratification projects,'' Ms. Regis said. That means scarves, baby
sweaters and sweaters made with needles the size of turkey basters.
By the end of my class, I was started on a sweater. A baby sweater.
As original as taking up knitting seemed, it turns out I am just a typical
young urban knitter. We come to the craft with ambition and expensive taste.
Those acrylic Kleenex cozies of yore are not on the project list; nor are
ordinary wool scarves. Rebecca Rosen, the creative director at Stacy Charles
Collection, a maker and importer of luxury yarns, said the surprisingly big
sales of its large-gauge cashmere yarns this season caught her off guard. ''We
can't fill the orders basically,'' she said.
Knitters have also been snapping up hand-painted yarns in variegated colors.
At Cherry Tree Hill Yarn in East Montpelier, Vt., a maker of these yarns, sales
have more than doubled in the last year. Cheryl Potter, the owner of the
company, said she expected the same growth next year. Malo, an Italian cashmere
company, introduced a knitting kit this year called ''Thesweaterthat isn't.'' It
contains eight skeins of white cashmere, a pair of needles, a drawstring
cashmere bag -- and no pattern -- for $979.
For that much, you'd better hope you don't drop a stitch.
Today's knitters, especially novices, ''want something real luxurious and
something that knits quickly,'' Ms. Potter said, adding: ''They want to make
sure that their time is well spent.'' Those chunky sweaters are like writing
with crayons: the fatter the yarn, the fewer stitches per inch.
The Yarn Company, which has been open for about 20 years, was bought two
years ago by Ms. Merlis and Julie Israel, 31. Gotta Knit opened last year. These
and others, including the Yarn Connection on Madison Avenue, have done away with
outdated patterns. They now stock ones for the latest fashions, and if they
don't have one, they will write patterns for you. At Gotta Knit, so many
customers requested patterns for a chunky turtleneck vest by BCBG advertised in
fashion magazines that store employees even knitted a mock-up for display.
The last time knitting enjoyed a boom was nearly 20 years ago, when earthy
bohemian clothing was in style the first time around. Before that, knitting was
just another household skill, like cooking and sewing. Not all women knitted,
but most knew how. In the 1990's, it has become a means of balancing our hectic
lives.
''You saw this Zen thing happening and gardening and staying home and being
quiet,'' said Melanie Falick, the editor of Interweave Knits, a knitting
magazine. ''You can see a correlation between knitting and things like
gardening. Everything is so fast, and there has to be something in our lives
that goes slowly.''
My sweater was definitely going slowly. There were moments where I felt I had
fallen into a state of meditation, but mostly I was concentrating on keeping the
sweater from turning into a sock. Knitting requires fine, precise, quite
beautiful movements. They don't come immediately to everyone, but good knitters
tell me it will happen.
Its relaxing qualities have been drawing men to the craft, as well. John
Buscaglia, a psychotherapist in Manhattan, learned to knit some years ago. Now,
it is his method of relaxation. He knits between sessions with patients to clear
his mind. ''The repetitive motion is trance inducing,'' he said. ''It's like
meditation.''
Douglas Rosensweig, an art director in Manhattan, also knits, but like many
male knitters, he does it only in the privacy of his home. ''I've been asked to
go to these knitting circles,'' he said, ''but somehow -- it was probably
convenience -- I've never been able to make it.''
Mr. Buscaglia, on the other hand, thinks nothing of whipping out his knitting
bag on the airplane. ''It raises some eyebrows,'' he said. ''The women will stop
and will chat and will talk about their experiences knitting or crocheting. The
men just get stiff and uptight.''
Even as a woman, I feel a little uncomfortable bringing my knitting on the
train. Knitting still seems asocial and nerdy. But I plan to get over that. Part
of the reason I took it up was because it is such a portable hobby. It can be
carried in a small bag and worked on in spurts, on the subway, in the car, even
in the movie theater -- anywhere that you are sitting down and don't need to
make eye contact. I also like that you can knit and do something else at the
same time -- though at this point, if I tried to read and knit at once I might
lose an eye.
I have half a sleeve to go on that little green sweater I started five weeks
ago. I hope to give it to my baby niece, if she can still fit into it. At this
point she's growing faster than I'm knitting.
These days, you won't find either in the handful of yarn stores around
the city. They are selling out of gorgeous, luxury yarns, and their classes are
filled weeks in advance -- mostly by young professionals, with a surprising
number of men.
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