Have you ever considered what it is that you enjoy about knitting?

Knitting has recently been given a bit of publicity in the British press.  The Guardian tells us that activities such as knitting can make us both greener and happier, whilst The Times calls it ‘the trend that won’t die’, but one story that keeps on being re-hashed is that more and more of us are learning to knit to stave off the effects of the economic crisis.  In an article called ‘The wonder of wool… or how knitting is once again helping us through the hard times’ Daily Mail hack Andrew Levy tells is that the knitting revival has ‘clicked into top gear’ thanks to… the credit crunch.

Andrew Levy is not the first journalist to attribute the popularity of knitting to the misguided notion that making your own clothes is cheaper than buying them, and he will not be the last, but if you don’t knit to save money on clothing… why do you do it?

I remember having a conversation with another knitter when I was fresh to knitting, and my knitting friend telling me that she was a ‘process’ knitter.  I asked what she meant by this, and she said that some people knitted for the enjoyment of the physical movement of knitting – the relaxing, quiet, meditative action of needles and yarn, whereas other people were what she termed ‘product’ knitters – those that knitted because they wanted to have a hat that was turquoise with a lurex kitten motif intarsia knitted into the earflaps, and to be able to tell all subsequent admirers ‘Oh, this old thing?  I knitted it myself!’.

I hadn’t been knitting long enough to question why I enjoyed my new-found hobby, so didn’t quite understand the distinction.  I suspect that most of us will fall somewhere between the two states.  I enjoy both the relaxing process of knitting and the wonderful items that are borne of it, which I enjoy more than mass-produced and generic designs, but I certainly don’t knit because I find it to be cheaper than purchasing items in the shops.

So… Why do you knit?