Ten Ways to Anger a Knitter

Ten quick and easy ways to make a knitter angry.

1. Consistently refer to her work as a "cute hobby."


2. When the knitter shows you a Shetland shawl she knit from handspun yarn that took 264 hours of her life to produce and will be an heirloom that her great-great grandchildren will be wrapped in on the days of their birth, say, "I saw one just like this at Wal-Mart!"


3. On every journey you take with your knitter, make a point of driving by yarn shops but make sure you don't have time to stop. (This works especially well if there is a sale on.)


4. Shrink something.


5. Tell her that you don't know why she knits socks, that it seems silly when they are only $10 for five pairs and they're just as good.


6. Tell the knitter that you are sorry, but you really can't feel a difference between cashmere and acrylic.


7. Tell her that you aren't the sort of person who could learn to knit, since you "can't just sit there for hours."


8. Quietly take one out of every set of four double-pointed needles that she has and put them down the side of the couch. (You can't convince me that you aren't doing this already.)


9. If you are a child, grow faster than your knitter can knit. Requesting intricate sweaters and then refusing to wear them is also highly effective.


10. Try to ban knitting during TV time, because the clicking of the needles annoys you.
    

Yarn Harlot : The Secret Life of a Knitter
by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee