My Grumpy Soap Box - Charity Scarf Pics

Well an eventful day was had knitting. I attended my usual Wednesday group. A good time was had by all. One of the new knitters from the Monday group also attended. Life is good the Knitting Empire is still extended even if a little slower than it had been.

This is another Charity Knitting Scarf. It is five feet long and nearly a foot wide. By the way I never had a complaint from a homeless person about this type of scarf. It is great for the cold Pittsburgh Winters. And made from Super Bulky it knits up fast.



Another Round About Rant – So get Ready this one get’s a little weird

For the last year I have been looking at some of the trends in the local knitting world. I have noted one or two bothersome trends. First there are fewer groups out there then there were a couple years ago. I have tried to attend multiple groups. Even if I count the one group that was closed to visitors half the groups I have visited are no longer meeting. It does appear that they were all meeting six months ago.

There is the general trend that people do not knit in the Summer. If this were the case then these groups would have restarted by this point. The simple fact is that fewer groups are meeting. This time last year there were four groups meeting on the South Side. Of those groups only one is still meeting and it a group you have to pay to join. Now another group started up in the Spring, still, that is half the groups there were meeting a year ago.

The second trend I have noted is the lack of male knitters locally. The bottom line is that knitting is aimed at half the population. In this day and age when a woman can be an astronaut or senator a man is looked at like a freak if they knit. Every group that I go to I am greeted as an oddity by some of the group. Some groups although welcoming act as if I am an extraterrestrial. I have yet to meet one man working in a yarn store in this city part time or otherwise. And in my travels to other cities I have only met a four and they were married to the owner or were the owner.

I will say that Ewe Can Knit Down Town has a man named Stephen that teaches classes once and a while. He is the only male knitter that I have met even close to permanently on staff at a knitting store. And even though I stop in there frequently I have seen him twice in the last six months.

It is mind boggling that any business would so blatantly ignore such a large segment of the population. As I person that ran their own business and had a staff of thirteen part and full time I would never think of having only one sex on staff. It sends entirely the wrong message. And the message is that men are not welcome.

I have taught four men to knit in the last six months. Two have asked me to pick up things in the local mom and pop knit shops because they do not want to go into woman’s territory. They have all told me that they feel more comfortable shopping at Joanne’s or Michael’s where there is anonymity. The bottom line perception is that every man that knits is Gay. I know for a fact that even though my wife met me while knitting that perception about me has bothered her.

To be quite honest until a couple years ago I would rarely knit in public when in America, and especially not Pittsburgh. Toronto, Montreal no problem, heck it was a great way to meet women. I met my wife while knitting; I owe a lot to knitting in that way.

Knitting World if you do not want to have things fall apart, again like during the sixties, seventies and eighties heed my warning. This may not be all that it needed to keep it together but it a huge step. I cannot think of any activity that has staying power that does not include both genders. It does not happen. Even incredibly male things like Football, NASCAR, Baseball in a major way pander to the gender that is not as active. If I had a nickel for every time I heard a woman talk about how cute Dale Jr. or Jeff Gordon is I could open my own chain of mom and pop knitting stores.

By the way I would sell tons of acrylic and everything that Red Heart makes. Not to mention metal needles four feet long. I would sell Dark Horse’s natural fiber yarns and bamboo needles and a lot of other stuff. Oh yeah and a giant stack of Denise needles. I would also find a way to make the Denise needles in smaller sizes. There would also be a jumbotron on one wall and flat screen TV’s everywhere. I would have manly sports like NASCAR and Caber Tossing piped into the store 24 7. Bruce Springsteen and the East Street Band would play for the Grand Opening of each store. The reigning Miss America would cut the Ribbon and I would fly in Margaret Thatcher in to give a speech on current world affairs just to class up the place.

I figure I would open 28 stores like that with a five cent tax on the female groupies of Jeff Gordon and Dale Jr. I would also have Danica Patrick signing autographs.














Would it is be too over the top if I have Shakira on the same bill with Bruce. What would I care I would rolling in the dough from my hunky racer tax?
















By the way for those of you that think it was immature to put up a picture of a woman in tight pants on my blog I could have put up one of these pictures. Well I better go I owe someone somewhere some nickels.

Be safe out there and keep you stick on the ice