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KnitLit: Sweaters and Their Stories...and Other Writing About Knitting
Books: Travel: Bolivia: Item 5
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KnitLit: Sweaters and Their Stories...and Other Writing About Knittingby Linda Roghaar and Molly Wolf
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful: The fabric of our lives--stories about human fiber, January 31, 2003 Reviewer:Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - While this book would appeal mainly to knitters, anyone who likes the textile or fiber arts AND who likes a good "yarn" will love this book. It's packed with stories about how knitting affects the lives of the contributors. And there are many of these short essays in this wonderful collection. Are these tales just about "When I learned to knit and made a funny-looking sweater?" No--though there are stories just like that. There are also stories about how knitting is intertwined with life and death. The most meaningful story for me was by a man whose beloved grandmother INSISTED that her yarn stash be knit up into a warm afghan as she lay dying from cancer. She was at a ripe old age and had a full life, and the way she tied up the loose ends of her life, lovingly and with great passion and determination, was inspiring. This is like "Chicken Soup for the Knitting Soul." If you like to read about people who knit and about their real-life experiences and deep feelings, this book is for you. I really found it hard to put down, and I know when I re-read it, I will find more gold. Thanks, all of you who wrote this.
From Booklist
Knitting is hot again, with celebrities such as Julia Roberts having picked up their needles. But this book, while acknowledging the craft's trendiness, is really about what it means to create something. Sometimes, as many knitters know, there is only the dream of what could be, as unused yarn gathers dust. But that's what's so nice about this book of knitters' personal remembrances. There is the shared knowledge that projects don't always come to fruition; when they do, they are not always as one wished them to be. Then there's also the understanding that the process is oftentimes more important than what's on the needles. People who love to knit will love this book. Even though the stories begin to sound similar by the end--where the writer learned to knit; the way knitting helped her through a crisis--the warmth and emotion with which they are told seem singular each time. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Whether you’re a dedicated knitter who bestows lovingly crafted gifts upon family and friends at every possible occasion, a sometimes knitter with a bag of fully conceived but half-completed projects, or a newcomer who has recently taken up the needles with great gusto, you know the rewards that this hobby can bring. You may also know that knitting as a hobby can verge on obsession—be it the compulsive purchasing of stunning hand-spun wool, the desire to rip out nearly finished sweaters because you dropped a stitch, or the need to knit wherever, whenever, or however you can. Most important, though, knitting offers a camaraderie, a society of women and men who converse in a language all their own, flock to yarn stores with religious devotion, and can recite the time and place where they first learned to purl. These feelings are what KnitLit is all about. In this charming collection of stories, essays, anecdotes, and recollections, knitters of every “color” celebrate their hobby and share with you the joy it brings into their lives.
From the touching tale of a caring woman whose hand-knit dolls bring security to young hospital patients, to the hilarious story of a woman scorned who sends her ex-boyfriend a scarf knit with wolf hair only to have it torn to shreds by his dogs, to the moving recollection of a man whose grandmother’s dying wish was to knit all the wool in her knitting stash, to the finely wrought account of a man who keeps alive the memories of his companions and friends who have succumbed to AIDS by wearing the sweaters they left behind, KnitLit is a gift from knitters to knitters—crafted with as much love and care as an afghan or a wool scarf. Wrap yourself in KnitLit, and be inspired.
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