On why I knit

First, MS3 Clue 1 is complete (again). Before I get back to the Empire Cardigan or do some real work, I had a few thoughts this weekend on why I knit.

I like what I do for work, but it is essentially a means to support my life. I happen to have a job I enjoy doing 40 hours a week, but I'd have to do something to pay rent whether or not I liked it. So work is a necessity.

Outside of work, a lot of my life is based on other people. Not in the altruistic sense so much as in the realistic sense- I choose activities that will allow me to spend time with my friends, which means I often choose to do things that I enjoy well enough, but may not be my favorite activity. In college that meant watching a lot of Grand Theft Auto at my friends' suite in the dorms. In grad school it was a mix of necessity (grading, writing, reading) and activities I could do with friends (going out for drinks, getting together at Barnes and Noble to grade, late night runs to Steak 'n Shake). Now that I am all grown up, or closer to it, I still end up choosing to do things quite a bit of the time based on other people's interests, and joining them in what they enjoy doing. I get sucked into video games because my friends play, or pick up my guitar again because I hang out with friends who play more consistently. I read more when I hang out with readers (not that I ever really stop reading). Their hobbies remind me of my old hobbies, and I pick them up again for a bit.

Knitting isn't like that. Admittedly, I attend a few knitting groups. More of them when I first moved out here and didn't have a large network for companionship, but I still go to them now when I can. But mainly knitting is a personal choice. It's what I do for me- because I love it. I can spend an entire weekend doing nothing but knitting and occasionally surfing the web or cooking dinner. I knitted all through my cruise last December, and all through grad school when I wasn't actually working or hanging out with my pals. And sometimes when I was hanging out with pals. I'm not sure why I keep thinking about this today, but I suppose it's just a realization of how much it means to me to have this hobby. To be in a way connected to a huge collective of knitters worldwide, of all generations and geography and skill levels. And more importantly, to have something for myself that is completely independent of other people, of responsibilities. I choose to knit for others because I hope that something I knit will make someone else happy. But mostly I knit, whether for myself or for gifts, because I would do it anyways. The act of wrapping string around two needles and creating fabric is mesmerizing and beautiful and simple and infinitely creative. It makes me calmer, happier, and more at peace with myself.

I do almost everything in my life because of what I must do, or because other people expose me to it- knitting is a personal victory. People can laugh at my yarn stash, or roll their eyes at my handknitted sweaters and socks. I just ignore them- I am warmer and and more human because I am a knitter. I am many things- a girl, a Jew, an American, a francophile, a displaced New Hampshirite, a Marylander, a geek, a reader and writer and lover. How odd that above all these things, I identify by my craft. That a clumsy and wacky person like me can manage to create beautiful things out of simple materials will never cease to astonish me. That is why I knit.