At last night's Common Cod Fiber Guild meeting, Susan Gibbs from Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm was speaking about community supported agriculture, how she got started, and the value of knitting and other hand crafts in this day and age.
The meeting was punctuated with a PowerPoint containing the pictures from her farm of all of the animals, a truly gorgeous collection of photography. Given how much suck there is in the corporate world, it was a wonderful thing on its own seeing PowerPoint used in a way that didn't make me want to rip my hair out.
Susan was an engaging speaker, especially when she was telling the tale of how she fell in with community supported agriculture as a business model, how she got started, and what her work is like. Near the end she veered off in a discussion of why Knitting Matters Now, which was a bit more disjointed.
Knitting and other hand crafts often get a lot of flack, because they are expensive. A luxury hobby when anyone can go to KMart and buy a pair of socks for less money than it costs to buy yarn, much less the time to make them. However, knitting and other hand crafts are a lot more thrifty and useful than naysayers would have you believe. Most products made with quality yarns cost a fair amount, which is true, but the average knitter counts that cost as part of their entertainment budget. With dinner and a movie costing a couple easily $40 or more, all of a sudden buying 2 high quality (or upwards of 4 lower quality) skeins of sock yarn sounds a lot more reasonable. After all, it takes me about 3 weeks to make a pair of socks, which can be worn over and over versus about 3-4 hours for a good dinner and movie date.
More importantly than knitting math is the feeling of accomplishment that one gets from a hand craft. When you are finished spinning your wool, knitting a sweater, or crocheting a bag, you have an end product that you can identify and use. You have a skill which can be applied in times when the economy is poor to help you, your family and your friends keep warm. And you have finished something. Never underestimate the value of finishing something.
In today's working world a lot of jobs, even good ones, are repetitive. You are never done, because the task you just finished is a task that needs to be started and finished every day. If you are a salesperson, you call 100 people today to sell your company's wares but you will have to do the same thing tomorrow. If you work in a library, you open boxes, process books, and shelve items every day. While some things may change, the nature of the work normally does not. It is hard to end a day knowing you will be doing the same things tomorrow and feel like you have finished anything, and that is what a hand craft does for you. You know that you have finished a pair of socks or a sweater, and while you might start another one you have the time and luxury to revel in a sense of completeness, of having accomplished something. And you get to enjoy that feeling every time you use the item or see it being used.
That is why craft is important today.
