"Knitting Time, Just Lying There"

Sweaters ready to ship to Knit for Kids, November 2007

Here's a rather longish quote (the title of this post is a shortish quote from the same source) that is meant to convince you to zip right over to Mason-Dixon Knitting and become a daily reader of "The Nation's Leading Bi-Regional Knitting Blog." The blog takes the form of letters, written back and forth between two knitting friends, Ann and Kay. Here's a sample:

Dear Ann,

Oh for Pete's sake! "How do I knit so fast?" The truth: I don't knit all that fast. I am an old-school thrower, still knitting the way I learned in Camp Fire Girls when I was 11 years old. (To my fellow Camp Fire alums, a hearty Wohelo to ya!) I throw so slow it's like a rope trick. Each stitch is an event.

For me, the secret to fruitful multiplication of knitwear is not speed, but focus. When, as occasionally happens, I find myself not knitting, I ask myself, "Why am I not knitting right now?" Looking at the world from this perspective, one is shocked at the senseless waste of the oceans of knitting time that surround us. Knitting time just lying there: on the subway, in the waiting room, in front of the television, when somebody's mom is talking about somebody else's mom, when a tween is showing pictures of all the things in the PB Teen catalog that would look awesome in her room. One could knit through it all, and nobody would be the worse for it. My ability to multi-task--i.e., to knit while listening to gossip, or to knit while not ordering stuff from PB Teen--is without peer.

Just the other day, I was deep in the bowels of the City government bureaucracy, waiting for an appointment. Everyone else in the waiting room was slumped in their chair, the will to live seeping out of their pores, listening to receptionists chat in that way of receptionists who do not expect to be calling anyone up for their appointment anytime today. I was knitting away, cheerful as hell. (Knitting and eavesdropping--what could be better?) When it was my turn, the receptionist called out, "Ma'am who's knitting?" I wish I could have heard the rest of the story she was telling the other receptionist, but at least I was at the end of my row...


I so appreciate the fact that Kay has explained in her own words how it is that I knit sweaters for Knit for Kids while still maintaining a life. I believe I'm on sweater #48 or 49--when I've gotten to #50 I'll be taking some photos to post here before boxing up the latest batch to mail away.


I used to be working toward a goal of 100 sweaters for this organization, but then I read about a woman who has knit 200 for them. I have no idea what my goal should be now, but my new motto is Knit Faster, Live Longer (or Else).