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Hot new campus trend clicks with ever-widening circles
By Danielle Masterson and David J. Craig
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BU Knitting Club founders Agnes Gyorfi (CAS’06) (left) and Brenna Rutherford (SAR’06) take a study break by breaking out the needles in Gyorfi’s residence hall room. Photo by Fred Sway |
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The click-clack of knitting needles blended with the sound of raindrops falling outside Brenna Rutherford’s apartment on a cold October afternoon two years ago. Inside, Rutherford was patiently teaching her BU classmate Agnes Gyorfi the craft of knitting, which she had learned from her grandmother. Soon thereafter, the BU Knitting Club was born.
The club now has more than 300 student members, men and women. At least 30 of them break out their knitting needles at 8 p.m. sharp every other Wednesday at the George Sherman Union. They come to relieve stress, make affordable gifts, and meet new people.
“We talk about the projects that people have going,” says Rutherford (SAR’06), who founded the club with Gyorfi (CAS’06). “Last year, I worked on a blanket for my brother’s wedding and a pair of fingerless gloves. Right now, I’m making a scarf and a blanket for my kitten.”
If that sounds less than exciting, well, it is. But perhaps that’s exactly why a hobby generally associated with grandmas recently has become a hot trend among young urbanites — the respite it offers from the hustle and bustle of city life. A club meeting earlier this month made for a remarkable scene on a busy university campus, as students sat in small groups, staring down quietly at their work, and chatting sporadically about their courses, their hometowns, and who would receive the fruits of their slow and deliberate labor.
“I get tension out by knitting,” says Gyorfi. “It’s a different kind of concentration.”
The current popularity of knitting in part, no doubt, is because of its embrace by celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Julianna Marguiles, and its influence on the work of such clothing designers as Oscar de la Renta and Nicole Miller. But members of BU’s club say that the allure of the hobby runs deeper than that of most trends. For starters, they say, knitting is seriously addictive. Gyorfi had never knitted before meeting Rutherford freshman year, and now she pulls out her needles everywhere: in movie theaters, restaurants, while reading at home, and in airports. “When I was a freshman and it was really cold outside, I found it better to keep my fingers moving, so I knitted while walking,” she recalls. “My boyfriend does comment on the clinking of the needles during movies.”
Rutherford, a Minnesota native, is a lifelong knitting enthusiast and always has a project going, as well. “When I was little, my grandmother and I used to make potholders,” she says. “You could never use mine because they always had holes in them. But she would give me a penny for every row I knitted.”
Students interested in the BU club need no experience, or even materials, to join. Needles are available to rent; yarn is sold for $2 a skein. At a recent meeting Rutherford and Gyorfi ran out of needles and had to turn several students away. Novices lucky enough to get in received instruction from experienced peers. They used bright teal, purple, and yellow yarn to make slipknots, and then learned how to cast on to a needle and start their first knitted swatch. “People who already know how will chat and knit,” says Gyorfi, who makes things for friends or charity, never for herself. “If others need help, they can use books we have here or ask. I’m really happy to teach people.”
The club also takes part in a service project each semester. Last year, the group made blankets for the nonprofit Warm Up America Foundation; members this year are considering making hats for children undergoing chemotherapy, afghans for homeless animals, and blankets for babies with AIDS.
Right now, however, knitting is, above all else, hip. “I see a lot of people my age doing it,” says Gyorfi, who acknowledges that heads still turn occasionally when she knits in public. “There definitely is a movement.”
For more information about the Knitting Club, e-mail knitting@bu.edu.
22
October 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations