Patterns, projects and techniques
Go to the Worldwide Knit In Public Day website to find the nearest event, or if you want to host your own, you’ll find info there, as well as a database that you can add your event to.
It’s held the 2nd Saturday of June and you can find lots more info here: http://www.wwkipday.com/find_kip.htm
Not too long ago I was seeing a crochet pattern for a glasses holder shaped like a bear all over the Internet. It was super cute, and also useful as a place to put your glasses on your bedside table instead of just throwing them somewhere random.
This project stewed in my brain for a little while and I decided I needed to make a knit version, but I didn’t want to make a bear. If you know anything about me you might know that I’m a cat person, so of course my version had to be a cat.
The base is just a basic little basic worked from the center out to the desired size, then up the sides as long as you want them. Knit some ears and add embellishments to make it whatever kind of animal you want.
The way I figured out to work the base from the center out was to use a crochet cast on, which gives you an easier way to pick up stitches from the back of the cast on than if you worked a more traditional cast on for a knitting project. It’s kind of fun to do things in a different way from time to time.
This little project is adorable if I do say so myself, and even as a plain little basket not made into an animal it’s a cute way to keep your glasses or other little things in one place. I’m tempted to make one for my desk to hold pens or even little little scissors and sewing needles that are always on my desk but somehow always seem to get lost on my desk.
If you need a little holder for your glasses on your table, check out the pattern at Our Daily Craft.
[Photo: Our Daily Craft]
I thought the key to high sales in the retail or restaurant business was to bring new buyers into the store and keep the old ones coming back. Yet when we went to restaurants, coffee shops and grocery stores in our area to say, “There are 12 to 20 of us and we want to hang out in your place of business for two or three hours,” we were told “No” or received no response. I didn’t get it.
A columnist for our local paper published an article informing the public about our search for a site for Knit in Public Day. We received only two invitations from the entire readership. I was totally confused by the lack of response. Why weren’t they fighting for our business? We are the buyers! We decide where we will buy groceries or clothes and school supplies for our children. We decide where to take our families when we eat out. In addition to the loss of whatever money we might have spent that day, is the loss of good will and future sales.
Then, suddenly, it came to me! We are not seen as the buyers. Today the public perception of knitting and knitters is negative. Many people think that knitting is only for old ladies who have nothing else to do. Many men refuse even to try because of this image. It does take some effort to learn something new, and time to develop it into an art, but some men are self confident enough to have made the effort. People of both sexes and all age groups take knitting seriously.
That may be a fact, but businesses in our area are ignorant of that fact, and will continue that way unless knitters make some effort to change the public perception of who knitters are, and what it is all about.
We desperately need Knit in Public Day. In fact, it is important to make every day Knit in Public Day. New knitting groups are organizing all the time, but most are still somewhat behind closed doors. They are held in homes, yarn shops, community rooms of a church or library. We need to get into the restaurants and coffee shops where there is more exposure to non-knitters. Whatever posters and fliers we distribute should be going into the entire community; not just in the knitting community. We should be looking for the opportunity in everything we do to get positive press for knitters and knitting.