MacKnitter to the Rescue!

My husband sometimes thinks I have superhuman powers, or at least MacGyver-like skills. He's fascinated by my ability to take a hunk of wool and two sticks and make something both beautiful and functional. He sees my hands moving about in seemingly the exact same way time and time again, yet each time it yields something different.

Wool + needles + mysterious knitting super power = scarf, hat, sock, mitt, gloves, sweater, belt, chaps, Pterydactyl... The list goes on.

He's further amazed by the fact that half of the time, I seem not to even be looking at what I'm doing. I'm watching a TV show and having a conversation with him, all the while creating a cozy masterpiece. (Clearly, he is forgetting all of the times I have cursed while focusing too much on something else and then undone my work to redo it again the right way.)

He claims to have tried this, moving his hands about holding a piece of string and two toothpicks, and all he has managed to create is a mess of string and toothpicks. "That's not all you've managed", I say. "You also look kind of funny doing it." I shouldn't mock him. He is, after all, my biggest fan.

I suppose knitting is a kind of awesome skill, though the cool kids might not think so. I don't know that it's all that useful a survival skill: I don't know how many jams I could knit myself out of. In other words, I don't think MacGyver would be all that impressed. That is, unless he found himself stranded in a land with no clothes - a very cold land with no clothes - and only sheep and trees as far as the eye could see. He'd figure out a way to sheer the sheep, hack down a tree and whittle knitting needles from the wood. And then he'd wait for me to rescue him from hypothermia. I'd fly in with the help of my hand-knit wings, and stitch him a cozy and fabulous wardrobe.

Perhaps knowing Russell Crowe knits, elevates knitting to cool status.

Retrieved March 2, 2011 from http://anacleta.homestead.com/knittinghumor.html

I don't know if I believe that this photo is real. (See Knitting Confidential: Does Russell Crowe knit? for a smart summary of the debate.) But I've seen it now, and can picture Russell Crowe no other way. I now imagine Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell's Master and Commander character) retiring to his quarters after a long day to knit.

If you're looking for a new hobby, it's worth a try. Knitting is a very relaxing activity (if you don't count the I dropped the bleepity-bleep-bleep stitch again!?! cursing ritual that inevitably occurs), and there is a sense of accomplishment in making something rather than buying it.