Knit together
A couple of years ago, while putting together some shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, I thought, “Why don't I make something?” So I bought some yarn, broke out the old knitting needles, re-taught myself how to cast on and haven't stopped knitting ever since.
But I was surprised to learn that knitting is now cool (the Craft Yarn Council of America says that the number of women under 35 who have taken up knitting since 1998 has quadrupled)—and that celebrities like Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston and Julianne Moore are compulsive knitters and unashamed of it, boldly posing with their half-finished projects in front of the paparazzi. What's the appeal?
After trawling around the Internet for a while, I've come up with the following reasons why more and more people are casting on:
- People like being able to make unique things that no one else is wearing including things tailored to their own size;
- People like the fact that they can make things for themselves (or for others) relatively cheaply; plus its a good outlet for artistic expression and creating beauty;
- Knitting allows you to connect to a previous generation of craftswomen who pass on their knowledge and skills (and needles) to the younger generation;
- It's not hard to learn the basics and if you want something more challenging, you can always find more complicated patterns to try, e.g. lace knitting;
- You can do it pretty much anywhere—noise and interruptions aren't a problem;
- Knitting is fun: it helps focus the mind (or distract you from things you don't want to be thinking about, e.g. if you've just quit smoking), it calms you down and helps to relieve your stress;
- In fact, Knitting has a wide range of health benefits for people with heart conditions, high blood pressure, chronic pain and even insomnia.
There's something cool about this—seeing people exercise God's gift of creativity with just a few sticks and a bit of string—making art—making socks and bags and scarves and shawls and jumpers and even prosthetic breasts for mastectomy patients—or making gifts—a scarf for your best friend in her favourite colour, baby clothes for an expectant mum ... even a womb which someone I know made for a friend who was about to undergo a hysterectomy.
I started thinking about how knitting could be used to further the kingdom of God and I came up with the following ideas:
- Broaden your circle of friends to include more non-Christians by joining a knitting circle. Knitting is a very social activity and it always gives you something to talk about: “What are you knitting?“, ”Who is it for?”, etc.
- Start a knitting circle to reach out into the community (based at church or based in your home). (Most knitters are women but there are more and more men who are taking it up so you might get a few coming to your group. You might even get enough men to form a men's knitting circle!) Over time, as you build up relationship with people and start talking about God with them, you could suggest spending part of your meetings listening to a gospel talk/watching a gospel video (activities that can be done while knitting) which you can then talk about later (as you knit);
- Knit nice things to sell to raise money to give to various ministries, eg. missionaries, AFES, FEVA. You could hold a knitting show in the church hall. Works could even be auctioned off like these knitters did for Hurricane Katrina relief;
- Teach people in your church to knit and get them to knit for charity—e.g. Operation Christmas child—as a group bonding activity and to encourage them to be generous and unselfish. Perhaps you could combine this sort of thing with a series of studies on a topic like “God's sovereignty and Social Justice” to push people think about how to be Christians in the world;
- Knit gifts for people in your congregation to show them you love them, e.g. baby clothes, a beautiful poncho for someone's birthday, etc. You could also make little things to give to people in between special occasions to do things like cheer them up if they feel down and are going through a rough time.
And I'm sure you could think of more!