We knit, We net, We hook

We make things because we feel a creative pull to make them, in fact, feel compelled to make them.

Our handwork is a crucial part of our daily lives. Yet weekly, we gather to do our singular craft in the company of other women. In our culture, handwork has evolved from simple production of utilitarian goods to a creative pastime, but still the urge to make things exists. We make things when we might otherwise purchase them. And we gather to make them when we might just as easily make them at home.

If our handwork fills our creative needs, then our group serves our social and emotional needs. Across cultures and across time, women have been gathering to do their work: food preparation, washing, sewing, quilting. And while they worked, they talked. Our work has changed, the items we make have changed, but still we make them, still we make them with other women.

Colleen O'Neill Conlan, Knitting Ethnography, available at the Vinalhaven Public Library