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Reclining Knitter Raises Ire, Causes Plane to Be Diverted

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woman escorted off plane after fight with knitterWhen I first saw this story, I thought it was a joke. But, apparently, it happened. A Delta flight from New York headed to West Palm Beach, Florida, made a stop in Jacksonville instead on Monday because of a fight that started over knitting. Sort of.

One woman, whose name is not given but who was described in some reports as an “older woman,” reclined her seat in order to make a little more room for her knitting.

The woman behind her, identified as Amy Fine, was apparently trying to take a nap on her tray table when the seat reclined. Her reaction was yelling and swearing.

According to a report from the guy sitting next to the knitter, when the flight attendant came over Fine said she wanted the plane to land.

Fine was met on the ground by police but not arrested. No word on what happened to the knitter.

Perhaps this is why you should always use circular needles while traveling? (Just kidding.)

Have you ever had a dramatic reaction to your knitting? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo by Joanna Thatcher/ABC News from cell phone video of the woman being taken off the plane.]

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Comments

  3. No reaction to knitting but frankly, I wish they would not allow seats to recline. In this case, someone had their head on the tray (kind of odd), but with a 36″ inseam, I barely fit anyway and if you move your seat, my femur is shoved into my hip bone socket – and it hurts!

Have you read?

Make Your Knitting Machine Scarves Better

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve shared any patterns for our circular knitting machine users. I know these devices aren’t for everyone but even though I much prefer knitting by hand, it is kind of fun to crank things out on these machines.

One of the most common early projects for a circular knitting machine is a scarf. Which makes sense, because it’s just one long tube and you can make it as long as you like.

One problem that comes from knitting scarves on the circular knitting machine, though, is that it can be hard to know how to finish the ends of the tube so that it looks like a finished scarf and not a tube of knitting.

If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, the most basic way to finish a circular knitting machine scarf is just by cinching up the ends and maybe adding a pompom to each end to cover up any hole that might still be visible at the end.

But if you have a little knitting or crochet skill or are willing to learn, there are a lot of different options for closing up the ends of a scarf. And this would also be true if you hand knit a tube scarf!

I recently wrote a post over at Our Daily Craft that includes five different ways to close up the ends of a tube scarf:

  • the simple cinching method mentioned above
  • sewing the stitches together
  • three needle bind off
  • grafting
  • crochet bind off

Grafting is my favorite because I feel like it gives the cleanest, closest to a seamless look. If you’re a knitter you may already know how to do it but even if you don’t it’s not that hard to learn.

Do you knit tube scarves by hand or machine? I’d love to know how you like to finish them!