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Issue Date: April 7, 2002
Celebrity-knit blankets to benefit charity
 Bid on one-of-a-kind blankets through La Knitterie Parisienne.
Edith Eig's Los Angeles yarn shop, La Knitterie Parisienne, often is filled with famous people. In the wake of Sept. 11, Eig has asked her Hollywood clientele to come together and knit two blankets to be auctioned off to benefit the New York Police & Fire Widows' & Children's Benefit Fund. About 40 stars each have knitted a square. Now USA WEEKEND Magazine is partnering with Eig to auction the blankets online.
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In the loop
Knitters yearn for yarn and companionship in a world of uncertainty.
By Michele Hatty
In the days following Sept. 11, young people retreated to an unlikely place in their search for solace: a yarn store. The shop in question, Los Angeles' La Knitterie Parisienne, quickly became a haven for gathering, comforting and -- not incidentally -- knitting.
Customers collected their yarn and anchored themselves to spots around the big wooden table in the store's back room, the gentle clicking of the needles lending a bit of peace to each person there. "They needed to get away from the television and just to talk to each other," explains owner Edith Eig, who relocated the cozy shop six years ago after 20 years in New Jersey.
Actress Debra Messing knitted this square for the celebrity charity blanket.
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In an age where people spend far more time typing on a keyboard than creating something tangible with their hands, it's only natural that a technology backlash would erupt. The Craft Yarn Council of America estimates the number of knitters under age 35 has risen more than 50% since 1998. Additionally, the group notes that of the 38 million Americans who knit, nearly two-thirds use the craft as a stress reliever.
"Knitting is the new yoga," says Lily Chin, author of "The Urban Knitter" (Berkley, $14). The designer travels the nation, offering classes for would-be knitters. Along the way, she's seen more and more 20- and 30-somethings sign on as pupils. "It's the hottest thing around. It's relaxing. It's like meditation," she says. "I'm a Type-A New Yorker, and there's nothing like, after a tough day, taking out my aggressions on my knitting, stabbing those stitches over and over."
Brenda Janish, a casual knitter, agrees: "The therapeutic effect draws and addicts people. It puts you in a calm state, because you're focusing on something other than whatever's stressing you out. And at the end you have something to show for it. It's like therapy with a takeaway."
Janish, 35, runs an informal knitting circle in Chicago. The group started when Janish decided to take her knitting off the couch and into the world. "I didn't want to become this cliché single woman with two cats sitting in her living room, which is what I was becoming," she says, laughing.
The Web designer and her companions -- 10 to 15 young urban professionals -- have been getting together at coffee shops every Tuesday night for more than a year to catch up, trade stories, hang out and knit. "There's no agenda," Janish says. "The first thing people do is find out what other people are working on. A lot of people, even from week to week, will finish a project and start a new one. But we talk about anything -- "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Russell Crowe, "The Simpsons", the news."
The group canceled its meeting Sept. 11, regrouped the following week and immediately started stitching blankets for their local fire department.
Elizabeth Taylor responded to Edith Eig's request for knitted squares by making this one for the charity blanket.
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For some, knitting goes beyond therapy, offering a spiritual outlet. Scott Nesbit, 44, is a tennis coach at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. He got turned on to knitting last spring when the women's team he coaches would knit as they traveled to and from matches. Nesbit, who drove the bus, couldn't join in, but he was impressed by how much fun his team was having. In October, his 9-year-old daughter offered to teach him to knit; Nesbit was hooked. Soon he connected with a knitting group at his church and began his first project: a prayer shawl.
"We generally have a certain person in mind. That person might be sick or having a hard time, and as we knit the shawls, we pray for them. After we finish, we give the shawl to the person we've been praying for," Nesbit says. "I've always been a really busy, active person. I appreciate that knitting has slowed me down and given me time to pray."
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We sew to make ourselves whole
The American tradition of handcrafting may be best personified in Betsy Ross, who is thought to have sewn the first American flag in 1776. Here, her great-great-great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth "Betsy" Ross Balderston, 59, of Philadelphia, reflects on why we craft:
"Time was when sewing was a necessary part of running a household. My mother and grandmothers all made clothes for me, my brother and my four sisters. They sewed partly to save money, but I'm sure it was also a form of artistic expression. These days, I crochet afghans for the joy of the colors in the squares, as well as for the warmth they will provide. I make pointy-nosed, stuffed creatures. I sew Halloween costumes for children and even for their stuffed animals -- a butterfly costume for a snail hand puppet! I have knitted exactly one sweater for myself, years ago, which I still wear. And I make things as acts of hope and healing. Right after my brother died, I made a crib quilt for a baby present, trying to piece some order and sense back into my world. What I've come to realize is that all of us are artists in our own ways, and when life doesn't seem to make any sense at all, art helps to make the world whole."
Celebrity-knit blankets to benefit charity
Bid on one-of-a-kind blankets through La Knitterie Parisienne.
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