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| A new yarn acquisition… |
I’m in the midst of a stream of houseguests for most of the month. Today is a day “off” after sending off my friend, Athena, before welcoming my sister-in-law, Emily, tomorrow. My other friend, Jasmine, was in town last week. All these guests have made me realize how much of my daily life is spent at home, working on various projects.
When guests are in the house, I always wonder how much knitting is appropriate. While we’re hanging out in the living room, is it okay to grab my current project? When I’m home with my husband, I don’t think anything of it, and he certainly doesn’t mind. But houseguests? How do they see it?
I know I can knit and talk without distraction, unless I’m working on something challenging. Generally speaking, I can work away without much attention to my project, but I worry how it’s viewed by my guests and non-knitting friends. Do they think I’m ignoring them? Is it rude? Where do we draw the line? I mean, is it okay for me to knit if we’re talking about pop culture, but I should put it aside if we talk about something more personal? I see tons of threads on Ravelry about people being kicked out of class for knitting, taking projects to movie theaters or work meetings or sporting events… We knit everywhere, but should we?
I would think knitting is sort of like playing games on your cell phone- both are things I find inappropriate at a dinner table. Buttttttt if I was chatting to a friend, I’d find her knitting much less distracting than if she were to pull out her phone and start playing Angry Birds or texting. So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there isn’t an easy correlation. And I realize that I’ll have a biased response here, but I have to ask…
Where do you draw the line with knitting in public?
– YX
I can't explain where I draw the line, but there is a line. I never equated knitting to Angry Birds but you may be right. My knitting may be as offensive as someone playing a game on a phone.
I've learned that my knitting is very offensive to non-knitters. I had a friend get upset at me because I would always knit when we were just sitting around chatting. We, as knitters, know how much or how little attention knitting takes. But people who don't knit really have no idea, so all they can see is that you're doing something else while they're just sitting there.