In Which the Pirate Considers Location.

Where do you like to indulge in your craft? Is your favourite arm chair your little knitting cubby area, or do you prefer to ‘knit in public’? Do you like to crochet in the great outdoors, perhaps, or knit in the bath, or at the pub?

Wherever I can!

No, seriously – I do most of my knitting and spinning in front of my laptop, at the table in my little room upstairs. There’s almost always a knitting project within reach, and I’ve put my spinning wheel just to the right of my chair, so I only have to turn a little bit to use it. There’s a Very Bright Light clipped to the underside of the loft-bed that is almost as good as the sun as far as providing light for working, though it doesn’t give the greatest light for taking pictures.

Knitting while watching television doesn’t work too well for me, because I find it difficult to pay attention to both at the same time. But I can easily knit while I’m holding a conversation… unless it’s the Stitch ‘n Bitch, and then I do much more talking than knitting! (Either that, or I knit and make mistakes. I can’t bring anything more complicated than a stockinette sock to the meetups. It’s sad, but even ribbing doesn’t go well while I’m trying to talk to a dozen people at once.)

I do love to knit in public. Waiting at the gate for an airplane, on a train, at the pub, or wherever I find myself with a little bit of free time. The reactions I get from random people who notice what I’m doing are just great. Most of them have been quite pleasant, though every so often I get a person who has no idea why I’d want to play with pointy things and tangly stuff. There was only one time when I felt completely awkward about it. I was at the airport waiting to board, knitting a sock, wondering if anyone would ask me what I was doing… when I noticed that the man sitting next to me had had both his legs off just below the knees. I was glad he didn’t ask, but I’d sort of decided to say that it was an armwarmer – I wasn’t even up to the heel yet – just to keep myself from enthusing about how great handknit socks are.

My absolute favourite knitting-in-public experience has got to be World-Wide Knit In Public Day in 2007. I was in Ottawa with two of my sworn-siblings, and the three of us found seats on the patio at the Highlander Pub. We all drank beer and ate haggis and worked on our socks together in the summer sun, and it was glorious.