Mim’s Blog

I think we should just all think of it as a really exclusive, secret society, kindof like the Skulls, only less creepy, and with more girls, and where people only very rarely try to kill other people. And you could be, like, the yarn president!

Can I be secretary of scarves?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot also. Just the other day I was at dinner with the whole family who I haven’t seen in a while. They asked me what I’ve been up to and aside from grad school (which really deserves to be entirely in caps) I’ve been…well, knitting. They couldn’t understand how it’s the bulk of my time. And for a second there I doubted myself. I thought- What do I do? What else is going on?- But I think it’s a concept that non knitting enthusiasts may just have to pass on.

Maybe it’s a phenomenon that is experienced by people devoted to a particular past time, not only to knitters?

Oh, you knit? Can you make me a hoodie? I’m going camping this weekend…

No, they don’t understand. If they knew what we really did at our knitting groups, they would be very scared!

Thanks for doing what you do…

I, too, have been trying to understand and rationalize how my knitting life is so connected to my life in cyberspace. I tell my family about all the blogs I read and the wonderful patterns I have obtained and the techniques I have learned because of this wonderful network of knitters on the web, and they just sort of give me the same blank stare you get so often, Miriam. Rest assured you are a celebrity in this world, and I sincerely hope you continue to design and blog and knit like crazy. Many of us read your thoughts every day.
Sue J.

I’ve given up telling people that I blog about knitting. They just look at me strangely. Come to think of it, even some of my knitting friends think I’m odd because of the blogging thing. I always have my knitting with me. I’m the mom who is always sitting there knitting lovely lace or socks or spindling while her kids are in a class or the library. All the other moms just sit there doing nothing. Though some will politely ask what I’m working on, their interest quickly wanes once I show them the pattern. I’ve learned not even to try and tell about the yarn past making them feel how soft:) Sometimes, when I wear something they’ll ask if I made it, but none of them are interested beyond that (unless it’s to ask when I’m making them one; I had one annoying woman who kept asking when I was making her a pair of socks though she had said rather derisively that she didn’t have the time to do something like that.) I love the blogging community and I’ve found so many wonderful people and wonderful designers through blogging!

Very good post! Sorry my comment was so long. (And thanks for mentioning my Icarus! I’m so happy with how it turned out:)

I do think that there are lots of other little sub-worlds that we knitters don’t know about or care about, so I am content to leave it at that and hang with my knitting buddies every chance I get, either virtually or in person. I think I have to consider it some sort of breakthrough that my DH, who truly loves me but is far behind me technologically, just a few weeks ago asked me to bookmark my blog so that he could keep up with reading it (this is the guy I turned onto political blogs last winter, but who can’t ever remember how to enter a URL and relies entirely on his list of faves to navigate the net). He does understand about the stuff coming out the other end though, and how it’s not all the same and therefore you need different kinds of tools… but then, he’s a woodworker and they all just love tools!

I totally, completely know what you’re talking about. I lean towards Birdsong’s statement, and try to keep a sense of perspective about the whole thing. I think it’s good to learn that one can be a superstar in one small arena of life, and still be a muggle everywhere else.

In non-knitting life, I just keep it vague, figuring that they don’t really want to know (or else they’d know already). Then again, I haven’t done anything half as spectacular as Icarus! If someone presses, or the issue comes up and you really can’t dodge it (or don’t care to) I’d recommend using a phrase like “I’m a published knitting author” or “I’m a published knitting designer.”

Most people understand “published,” and will interpret it to mean loosely to them what it does to us. And you ARE published, and deserve their respect!

I keep my lives separate too, I have one friend in particular that does not at all get the knitting thing. When she asks me to get together on Tuesday nights I just say I have plans instead of the whole, sorry I am going to knit with strangers and knit friends. I am not ashamed–just sick of feeling like I have to justify it and my hobby. I hate that most people don’t get it or think it is as cool, creative, and interesting as I do. I think my knitting makes me MORE interesting. Too bad not everyone shares this opinion.

My semi & non-knitting friends refer to my SnBs as either a Knitting Cult or Knitting Mafia….One was pretty funny and told me that she better not see me on TV drinking grape kool-aid (even funnier because english is her second language). I don’t try to hide it. I’ve decided I’m too old to worry, so I knit when I want and talk fiber as much as I want. I knit in public and secertly wish I knew how to spin!

I believe everyone around me knows that I knit and I go knitting on Thursday nights–they call it my Knitting Escape night. Some of them do look intrigued by the notion of a bunch of women getting together to knit. Of course, I have to tell them it is not just about knitting but a coming together to bond and share in our life’s adventures.

They all wondered when I moved here why I was never outside with the kids in the afternoon, hubby one day explained to all the neighbors that his wife was writing a loom knitting book–hehehe, since that day, they all looked at me differently…ha! It is nice to be recognized by the muggles…if they misbehave, I shall have to take my tiny size 1 wands out and start stabbing, hehehehe.

Now the blogging, that is a whole different story–they don’t grasp the concept and are terrified of the idea…sigh..

Looking forward to part deux :)

Sweetie, all super-heroes have a mild-mannered alter-ego. The teeming masses aren’t supposed to know.

OH. Yes. I’ve just recently grasped the fact that I’ve been going on and on with my work pals about knitting and blogging and – omg – they don’t “get it.” They do see me knitting. But most of them think it’s weird, quaint, or perhaps a substitute for the smoking I gave up almost 3 years ago. While I admit that keeping my hands busy initially helped, I wasn’t knitting when I quit! My family thinks I’m just continuing a tradition of needlework in the maternal line. My big sister does read my blog and thinks it’s neat. My fella is pretty much supportive – he asks “What’s new?” and if I go on too long about this or that lace project, he glazes over. While he does read my blog, he also has to have it bookmarked, like Birdsong’s DH. I think it’s b/c he sees it as peripheral to his world, not b/c he’s technologically challenged. He’s an engineer, which should explain everything! But he watches me knit and seems intrigued about construction methods, especially lace and socks. Can’t get him to try it tho’!

Thank heaven for the sisterhood of knitbloggers. I’d have never found my local knit group, nor would I have learned so much about knitting without the internet! I’ve made wonderful friends, two of whom I’ve actually met. And to me, it’s just very special to actually communicate with the people who write the books and design the creations I’m making.

Great blog entry! Can’t wait for part 2.
(((hugs)))

Isn’t it funny how many people assume that you must have taken up knitting to quit smoking? I’ve had so many people make comments like “Well, it’s better than smoking!” And I just sort of have to murmur “I suppose it would be…”

People just never understand . . . their loss, of course!

But really, your co-workers/neighbors, who don’t know the “real” you? It’s like a secret-identity. By night, SuperKnitter, by day . . .

I think that there are stages you go through as you blog, and it sounds like you just hit the one where you contemplate the blog/real world divide. If you keep blogging, you won’t even think about it……. :)

“Maybe it’s a phenomenon that is experienced by people devoted to a particular past time, not only to knitters? ” — Nishanna. I can confirm that this is the case. With my father, it’s not knitting, it’s bells. As in Carillon bells. http://www.gcna.org/bells.html for example. My father is pretty well known within the world of bell enthusiasts, but outside that world, he gets similar reactions when speaking of bells as we do when discussing with knitting with muggles.

I only recently picked knitting back up again, after an 9 year break since my younger son was born. I didn’t start knit blogging until the Yarn Harlot visited my city earlier this year, but I’ve already met a bunch of local knitters through the online community connections. It’s wonderful.

This is a great post! You put the exact words on something we live everyday.

Exactly! I’m taking a driving trip in a few weeks, to and from Albuquerque, meeting and staying with bloggers along the front range and in New Mexico, and going to the Taos Wool Festival. I tried to explain it to my coworkers… my boss looked confused and concerned and said maybe we should focus on crosstraining my coworkers before I left!

Right there with you! You should have heard the howls of disbelieving laughter when I announced in a team meeting that I was taking a day off work to go to a fibre festival!

A very good post Mim. I sometimes think we as knitters live in a parellel universe:-) IF you talk to a muggle about what we do they just don’t get it. My collegues at work know sort of that I have had knitting patterns published but I know that I am thought of as the slightly eccentric one who keeps their computer network running – all IT people are looked on as a bit strange and the knitting and spinning just adds to the picture :-)

my co-workers seem to get it as well as can be expected. i work offsite about 500 miles away from them, so my whole knitting thing just adds to the mystique.

what cracks me up is my family. all the women in my family have always done needlework. so much so that it really isn’t that special, if you know what i mean. my dear brother, who loves and respects me in every way comes the closest to understanding what is going on with the blog and the patterns. but as recently as last week, he thought i was selling sewing pattern online, and was asking how in the heck i could fit a dress pattern into a PDF that people could download and print—oy vey!
then when i explained that it was knitting patterns, he jusut went silent. after a moment he said “you mean . . . people PAY for that?”

i second what someone else said—some people get it, and those are the ones you can talk to about it. the others are just “acquaintances”!

I’ve gone out on a limb with trusted confidantes, to share my secret of the blog. I told one friend that I love the creative outlet of writing. She looked at my blog and said “Oh that’s creative. A picture of a bag of yarn.” Other friends have said in a judgmental tone, “where do you find the time for this?” So I just quit talking about it, and no longer feel badly about keeping a secret.

My non-knitting friends have actually been fairly supportive of my knitting. Well, they like to make fun of me, but in a good-natured sort of way. Many of them have their own obsessions, so they can understand the obsessiveness even if they don’t understand the appeal of knitting in particular.

It’s when I try to make new friends and they ask me what I’ve been up to that I have a hard time saying “knitting” or “brainstorming about socks and reading knitting blogs and blogging and going to knitting events and knitting groups and perusing online yarn sales.” Though honestly, I haven’t made many new non-knitting friends in a long time.

My husband is very understanding and seems genuinely interested in my knitting. What really bothers me are the muggles I see on a regular basis who say, “My goodness, haven’t you finished that yet? You’ve been working on it for weeks.” I find that I’m completely flumoxed by this type of comment and more than a little angry.

I knit in public a lot because I take my knitting everywhere and I find that I don’t always feel like having to explain what I’m doing to every Tom, Dick or Harry who walks by. I’m not a performance artist, I’m just making a garment!

As it is, I get enough interesting comments from people when I tell them I knit (non-knitters just don’t understand) – the blogging thing would be too much for them, I think. ;)

I completely understand. My friends humor my knitting obsession and ask about it politely, but they just don’t get it when I say, well, there’s a knitting book author coming into town and about 300 of us are going to go listen to her speak and make a whole day of it. I think it’s pretty cool that there are certain bloggers (you included) are famous within the knitting world and I can go anywhere in the country and make instant friends.

Well put, as always! I always have to hold back on knitting questions peoplw ask…I don’t always want to say “Yeah, a sock…” The sock (or shawl, sweater etc) deserves more than that. But when you go off and say “Yes, it’s a pair of socks for my secret pal so and so from such and such a knitting blog, and the yarn I’m using was handspun and handpainted by so and so from such and such a knitting blog who makes it and sells it at this online shop, etc, etc, etc.” I want EVERYONE to understand how I feel about what I’m making and what I’m using to make it, and why. Not just “it’s a sock” or “yes, it’s wool.” To me, it’s not, it’s more. And Stephanie’s right. Muggles just won’t understand it or feel about it they we do in our world!

I completely agree with you about how great it is to have a community of knitters to talk with and read about.
I heard an interview yesterday with the author of a book called Who are you People?: it’s an account of groups/communities in America that have grown up around passions for very specific things. There’s a chapter on Barbie collectors, Furries, people who reenact Andy of Mayberry.
The author told a story about a Barbie collector whose son was murdered, and how her Barbie on-line community rallied around to support her, while her neighbors and friends slowly fell away.
Her point was that community is alive and thriving, it’s just that we find it in different places these days: a knitting blog, maybe, instead of the PTA.

I got tired of the stares and my inability to be vague when answering questions, so I tell people that I have a play date scheduled. They mostly ask if that’s like what kids do and I say yep, everybody needs to play with friends!