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I am a knitter. I learned from my mother when I was probably about six or seven. I am backdating that to the house I remember knitting in. I can see the bedroom where she had her sewing stuff. There was a little Singer sewing machine for kids there too, and I made little Barbie clothes and horse blankets on the machine that sounded like a mini-tank clanking away.
I did not have a Barbie. I had a Midge. She was Barbie’s darker, more athletic friend. I liked her better. I don’t know if it was an accident or that is what was on sale at the BX, but I had Midge and liked her just fine. And she needed clothes too. So about the same time I remember knitting, I also learned to sew.
Back to knitting: I learned to cast-on but it was so difficult that I knitted one thing and didn’t knit again. That first thing? a doll scarf for Midge. I cast on with some itchy fingering yarn on some red #10 Boye needles. I still have those needles.
There was a summer when Aunt Ella came to us for a few weeks, and that’s when I learned to crochet. We made rag rugs together, and she showed me how to rip and sew the rags together, then how to make the rug. I have several of these rugs which she made and one that she started and I will finish. Eventually.
Early learning in handwork - especially with fibers and textiles - is beneficial for brain development. It really doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to figure this out… teaching children anything has the potential to make a lasting impression. But there definitely is something to stimulating fine motor control and intellectual development.
And perhaps this explains the grey-haired old granny stereotype for knitting. Grandma knew best that one of the best ways to keep the kids busy and out of Mom’s hair was to teach them knitting, crochet, tatting. And she was the one available to do this, so that is a possible origin of the stereotype. Children see old people and their grandparents as impossibly old, and since she was the one available for these influential moments of knitting and handwork instruction, the image stuck in the child’s mind. And I guess it doesn’t help that knitting needles are good for putting up your hair into a bun.
We’ve lost a generation or two of knitting Grandmas who were available to mind the kids and teach knitting. Grandma went back to work and expanded her horizons, and didn’t have as much time to knit much less watch the kids. Luckily, knitting and needlework are enjoying a rennaissance, and knitters are as likely to have purple hair, dreads or a shaved head (yes, I’m looking at you Franklin!).
Maybe in 20 years, the stereotype will have shifted to include eye patches, dreads, earrings… and grey hair.
