I have to believe it when Eat Your Heart out Martha (a great site!) talks about The Cult of Knit after my trip to the bookstore today. While browsing for anything interesting on the crochet shelf (nada), I stumbled upon no less than FIVE books about the “spirituality” of knitting. Wow. The Knitting Sutra? Are you joking? What’s next? Tantric Knitting? (someone’s gonna run with that one, I know it!) Then there’s The Knitting Goddess and Mindfull Knitting, not to mention Soulfull Knitting, Zen and the Art of Knitting and of course, the bestseller: At Knit’s End.
I haven’t read a word of any of these books, so for all I know, they are life-changing. However, I am a little shocked to find them in my favorite HOW-TO section of the bookstore. It makes me wonder what I’d find in the woodworking or home-repair shelf. Maybe something like “Unclogging your Qi: Your drainflow and your inner energyflow.”
And then there are all the articles proclaiming that “knitting is the new yoga.” “The new yoga?” Is that like “the new black?”
So, are knitters really uptight folks who need a special class of self-help books to relax? I don’t think so. I know a lot of committed knitters–they don’t look like seem like they’re in a cult–only as addicted to or obsessed with their craft as any of my crocheting compatriots. Hmm…
But in case you’re feeling left out of the cult–Our Dear Lady Linoleum has discoverd a new moniker for crocheters who want to OWN the 2nd-class status crochet sometimes receives in the eyes of Knitters. In a discussion that occurred surrounding one of her blog posts, a reader let on that she and her husband refer to crochet as Hillbilly Knitting. I love it. Now Mme L. is going to create a webring for Hillbilly Knitting. Stay tuned!
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