A yen for yarn
The Times Picayune - March 17 2006
Is knitting and purling a yearning for hearth and home? An interest in domestic arts is growing worldwide, but the local resurgence in needlework is not without Katrina relevance.
"Knitting is a link to seeking comfort and creating comfort," says Tulane University sociology professor April Brayfield, whose surroundings house academic books, feminist posters and bags of colorful knitted shawls and scarves.
Once a month, Brayfield's office in Newcomb Hall becomes the inner sanctum for a knitting circle of university women with a yen for yarn.
"Knitting is a way to create community. Not only does it fulfill a personal need, but also a need to be with others," Brayfield says. "You work on a project while working through issues."
Now that the winds and floods are last year's history and this year's anxiety, the campus knitting circle, formed not too long before Hurricane Katrina, is growing in popularity.
Needlework, say those devoted to it, has therapeutic effects.
"The repetition of the stitches provides a calming effect," says knitting veteran Marjorie Weiner, who when she evacuated packed enough skeins of yarn to knit her way through Alabama to Florida and back to New Orleans.
"I wasn't going to lose my stash," she says. And she wasn't going to leave behind the Zen-like benefits of a craft that was easy to pack.
But is the post-Katrina knitting bug psychological or sociological?
"The two are very much intertwined," Brayfield says.
"One aspect of the trend is social. People make a connection with others, but it doesn't mean they have to be your good friends. The activity makes it comfortable for women to come together with those they may not even know. This common interest creates a bonding experience," says Mary Colucci, executive director of the Craft Yarn Council of America, speaking from her Manhattan home. [more]
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