Knitting Quotes

“Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss?”
― Susan Gordon Lydon, The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice

“...the number one reason knitters knit is because they are so smart that they need knitting to make boring things interesting. Knitters are so compellingly clever that they simply can't tolerate boredom. It takes more to engage and entertain this kind of human, and they need an outlet or they get into trouble.

"...knitters just can't watch TV without doing something else. Knitters just can't wait in line, knitters just can't sit waiting at the doctor's office. Knitters need knitting to add a layer of interest in other, less constructive ways.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

“Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either.”
― Elizabeth Zimmerman

“Why do you have a cigarette lighter in your glove compartment?" her husband, Jack, asked her. "I'm bored with knitting. I've taken up arson”
― Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry

“ It is a peculiarity of knitters that they chronically underestimate the amount of time it takes to knit something. Birthday on Saturday? No problem. Socks are small. Never mind that the average sock knit out of sock-weight yarn contains about 17,000 stitches. Never mind that you need two of them. (That's 34,000 stitches, for anybody keeping track.)
Socks are only physically small. By stitch count, they are immense.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“I knit the afternoon away. I knit reasons for Elijah to come back. I knit apologies for Emma. I knit angry knots and slipped stitches for every mistake I ever made, and I knit wet, swollen stitches that look awful. I knit the sun down. ”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“Sometimes, people come up to me when I am knitting and they say things like, "Oh, I wish I could knit, but I'm just not the kind of person who can sit and waste time like that." How can knitting be wasting time? First, I never just knit; I knit and think, knit and listen, knit and watch. Second, you aren't wasting time if you get a useful or beautiful object at the end of it.

I will remember that not everyone understands. I will resist the urge to ask others what they do when they watch TV.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“SABLE- A common knitting acronym that stands for Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“ I will continue to freak out my children by knitting in public. It's good for them.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“As I get older, I just prefer to knit. ”
― Tracey Ullman

“Cat, I'll let you in on a little secret. We don't all love our jobs every day. And doing something you have passion for doesn't make the work part of it any easier...It just makes you less likely to quit.”
― Kate Jacobs, The Friday Night Knitting Club

“The best reason for a knitter to marry is that you can't teach the cat to be impressed when you finish a lace scarf.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“There is practically no activity that cannot be enhanced or replaced by knitting, if you really want to get obsessive about it.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“In the nineteeth century, knitting was prescribed to women as a cure for nervousness and hysteria. Many new knitters find this sort of hard to believe because, until you get good at it, knitting seems to cause those ailments.

The twitch above my right eye will disappear with knitting practice.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“When confronted with a birthday in a week I will remember that a book can be a really good present, too.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“I will always buy extra yarn. I will not try to tempt fate.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“Despite what we knitters know to be true, the non-knitting world somehow persists in thinking that a "knitter" looks a certain way. Most likely, this picture is one of an elderly woman, grandmotherly and polite, sitting in her rocking chair surrounded by homemade cookies and accompanied by a certain number of cats.

In reality, a knitter today is just as likely to be young, hip, male, and sitting at a "Stitch and Bitch" in a local bar. Several of today's best knitting designers are men, and a knitter is as likely to have body piercings as homemade cookies.

Despite our diversity, the tendency to be accompanied by a cat is an oddity among knitters that cannot be explained.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“How Superheroes Make Money:
- Spider-Man knits sweaters.
- Superman screw the lids on pickle jars.
- Iron Man, as you would suspect, just irons.”
― Jim Benton, Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers

“As long as there has been knitting there have been battles about it. There are self-declared "yarn snobs," who frown on using anything but natural fibers; "gauge snobs", who wouldn't be caught dead with chunky yarn; and "experience snobs", who claim you can't declare yourself a real knitter until you abandon novelty yarns. The truth is that the knitting world is a tiny metaphor for the real world. It takes all kinds.

I will not allow myself to feel bad if someone disapproves of my knitting. I will also resist the urge to stuff his mailbox full of chunky acrylic fun fur at 3:00 am.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“And in the act of making things, just by living their daily lives, they also make history.

Knitting is clothing made in spare moments, or round the fire, whenever women gathered together... It's something to celebrate-clothes made in love and service, something women have always done.”
― Anne Bartlett, Knitting

“So this was it. You take a wrong step and you end up wearing yesterday's underwear, sitting on the carpet trying to teach yourself how to knit. And even that doesn't work. She never expected it to be so hard. Life.”
― Kate Jacobs, The Friday Night Knitting Club

“it is pure potential. Every ball or skein of yarn holds something inside it, and the great mystery of what that might be can be almost spiritual”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot Unravels the Mysteries of Swatching, Stashing, Ribbing & Rolling to Free Your Inner Knitter

“A half finished shawl left on the coffee table isn't a mess; it's an object of art.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

“I will resist the urge to underestimate the complexity of knitting.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“It's only knitting and it's one of the few times in your life when there are no bad consequences to a mistake.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot Unravels the Mysteries of Swatching, Stashing, Ribbing & Rolling to Free Your Inner Knitter

“Achieving the state of SABLE is not, as many people who live with these knitters believe, a reason to stop buying yarn, but for the knitter it is an indication to write a will, bequeathing the stash to an appropriate heir.”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End

“... everyone has to knit when they're here. ... But not every person has to use yarn.”
― Kate Jacobs

“Mr Wisdom,' said the girl who had led him into the presence.
'Ah,' said Howard Saxby, and there was a pause of perhaps three minutes, during which his needles clicked busily. 'Wisdom, did she say?'
'Yes. I wrote "Cocktail Time"'
'You couldn't have done better,' said Mr Saxby cordially. 'How's your wife, Mr Wisdom?'
Cosmo said he had no wife.
'Surely?'
"I'm a bachelor.'
Then Wordsworth was wrong. He said you were married to immortal verse. Excuse me a moment,' murmured Mr Saxby, applying himself to the sock again. 'I'm just turning the heel. Do you knit?'
'No.'
'Sleep does. It knits the ravelled sleave of care.'

(After a period of engrossed knitting, Cosmo coughs loudly to draw attention to his presence.)
'Goodness, you made me jump!' he (Saxby) said. 'Who are you?'
'My name, as I have already told you, is Wisdom'
'How did you get in?' asked Mr Saxby with a show of interest.
'I was shown in.'
'And stayed in. I see, Tennyson was right. Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers. Take a chair.'
'I have.'
'Take another,' said Mr Saxby hospitably.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“imagine a scarf as an unlimited canvas”
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot Unravels the Mysteries of Swatching, Stashing, Ribbing & Rolling to Free Your Inner Knitter

“The scarf could go on and on and on and on, and it could be the harlot-red banner of shame that wrapped him up and kept him warm when the nights grew lonely and cold.”
― Amy Lane, Knitter in His Natural Habitat