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Reactions You Get When You Tell People You Knit: Add Yours!

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reactions to knittingOver the weekend I saw this fun post from Love Knitting about the reactions people commonly have when you tell them you knit.

Of course the first is “can you knit me something?” The answer is no, of course.

It also covers “I could never do that” and “why can’t you just go buy a sweater?” as well as a couple of other classics.

I would add to the list “you should totally sell that!” because I get that one all. the. time. (And we’ve talked about why selling isn’t as great as it seems before.)

Another great one is “I don’t have the patience for that,” while we all know that knitting is part of what gives us patience to deal with all the nonsense around us.

What would you add to this list? What do people say to you when they see you knitting or you tell them you are a knitter?

{Photo via Love Knitting.}

Comments

  1. They ask me how old I am, and why I act like a senior citizen lol. I am in my 30s and quilt as well.

  2. I make hats, using 2 circs. People ask, “What are you making?” I spread it out and show them how it will grow into a hat. Then they usually ask how long it will take, and are surprised to hear that a hat takes me 5 hours to make. I haven’t heard anyone say they don’t have the patience, and there have been no comments about my age – probably because I am already OLD.

  3. Variation on the the ‘buy a sweater’ comment: as I am usually knitting socks when traveling, more than once I have heard, “you should just buy socks at Walmart.” As if Walmart ever sold any socks like the ones I am knitting. And where would be the fun in that? I knit socks because I enjoy it, obviously, not because I can’t afford to buy them. No one knits socks to save money. Silly.

  4. Oh – I wish I had the time for that! Often spoken by someone who has seen every episode of Game of Thrones 🙂

  5. Along with, or right after the dropped jaw comes the inevitable “but you’re so…rock’n’roll…” They can’t conceive the thought of a rocker, derby girl being quiet and concentrated for five minutes, if that long. I used to show them some “black-skull-rocker” piece or whatever. Nowadays I don’t bother, I just nod and say ‘yeah, well, stereotypes can be a b****, you know?” LOL

Have you read?

Knit a Log Cabin Blanket with All Your Scraps

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn. 

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small. 

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches. 

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come. 

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you. 

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?). 

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry. 

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns. 

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]