although i have not wrapped up this pottery barn thing entirely i am going to riff about something different now, with the same reminders as usual: i am not here to give a well-rounded opinion or to think out all sides of any issue or "support" a "case" for anything or even keep readers interested. this isn't face the nation and i have no responsibility to refrain from taking ideas in the direction i want to take them just because someone somewhere may believe that somehow took the steam out of my position that i did not also address important (to them) issues X, Y and Z, or that i took it too far on issues A, B and C.
in this particular case, i am not even going to censor myself that way -- i simply wish to see how far i can take this particular, oversimplified, idealized train of thought. begin:
recently i was e-mailing with a friend and wondered to her if there would ever be a real "revolution" in knitting. she e-mailed back: this was it. we were IN it. novelty yarns on fat needles and i-pod cozies. this WAS the "revolution".
i did not reply to this; it was too depressing. i didn't think she was wrong; i knew she was right. i also realized i had probably asked the wrong question.
i decided to do some field research, and went straight to some friends who don't knit at all. i wanted to know what these non-knitting friends though it would require to make a "knitting revolution" occur.
i asked my friend lisa.
"visibility: not the end result sweater, but people knitting at the park, in meetings, on lunch break. then the stuff. and maybe a description of what knitting is-- knitting theory-- two needles and certain twists of the wrist make the yarn weave together in a chainmail pattern that can then be made into sweaters, table runners, xmas tree decorations."
okay; that, we got.
i asked my friend john.
"Maybe there could be an episode of the Gilmore Girls (A show I never miss) in which Lorelei starts attending a knitting club for women who hate their mothers?"
i then asked a new question: if the answer to your previous question is what comes to your mind as a "revolution", what then would make a counterrevolution?
i found lisa's answer particularly fascinating:
"handmade vs. machine made. custom made vs. off the rack. personalized
and customized. made for me; made by me for you. blue collar vs. fake. I saw a bit of some show, something like "Shopping Trips of the Filthy Rich". some superstar went to some fancy store, which they closed to everyone else, and just bought everything. If I was going to buy that many clothes, at that price, I'd hire knitters and sewers and designers to make everything specifically for and fitted to me. picking out fabric is a lot more fun that picking out clothes, I think."
john's answer, after more than 24 hours of deliberation, was:
"A video with Marilyn Manson knitting a big satanic sock?"
i was addressing all of this, as well, with emma, who told me about the the southern cross knitters. these folks are australians and new zealanders who are emphatically putting their feet down about something they don't like in the knitting "revolution", and, not surprisingly, they find what they don't like being generated mostly out of america. "In recent years the face of Australian knitting (in particular) has suffered greatly from the promoting of a false view that Australian knitters are the same as the American market.... We see the readers of Southern Cross Knitting as being knitters who are willing to try new things, whether they have been knitting for a week or a decade. They have a sense of humour, but want articles that contain solid technical information without inconsequential “fluff” and filler."
hey! i like that! i want that, too. and so do other americans. i recently came across a blog entry by a very new knitter who, upon reading one of the new and cool hipply bitchly weekendy knits books, was frustrated. "stop trying to make me laugh and tell me how to knit" was the comment i remember.
so at a time when knitting is “hip” and stitch and bitch meetups take place in pubs, why is there seemingly almost no real “edge” to the “movement”? why would something as exciting as a "revolution" become synonymous with "fluff and filler"? will all the little wisps of counterrevolutions band (kinda) together, to rise up (sort of) in united (more or less) offense against the happily homogeneous revolution (if it is in fact there?)
i asked a brand-new knitter the "revolution" question.
"I went into Rosie's the other day and saw crusty punks sitting with grandmother-like women, all happily knitting togetherlike a big family. Knitting IS in a revolution right now. I think that when more and more people discover its relaxing nature and the ability to create something beautiful that you can wear, give as gifts, or have around the house, more and more people will start to knit."
not only is that an accurate answer, it's a sincere, and happy one. the quote above may offer no insight, no previously unconsidered scenario to readers of this blog, or to "seasoned" knitters. it might even generate a roll of the eyes.
who do you suppose is having more fun with their knitting, though?
and why would you want to stop them?
but is it a contest to see who's having more fun?
and what do you do when the knitting majority makes you yawn, roll your eyes, smirk? where do you take your knitting? not physically -- but where do you take it? where will this new knitter, speaking above, and his new knitting partner -- who progressed from garter stitch to bears in the blink of an eye -- take their knitting next?
there is something in my friend lisa's vision -- the vision of a counterrevolution in knitting, as seen by a non-knitter -- that i can grasp as the beginning of an answer. never of course the answer, but one.
what say you, good people?