Becky
Men Who Knit
by Becky - April 5, 2007 - 12:00 PM

dfgOh, they do. And here’s proof: menwhoknit.com, where there are forums, insightful polls (e.g. “How do you pronounce the word skein?” & “Would you rip out your work to fix a mistake?”), event listings, and a Cafe Press store. I don’t know that the content is necessarily gender particular, but the community certainly protects its niche–though it seems to be tongue-in-cheek and not equivocally defensive. fdgOr maybe it’s just the Midwest? The Detroit News covered this a while back, and found some men who stand tall with their yarn:

Edmund Neumaier, 40, a registered nurse working night shifts in the emergency room at Henry Ford Bi-County Hospital in Warren, taught himself to knit as a stress reliever 20 years ago.

But his interest has grown in it as an artistic expression. He recently bought two spinning wheels, costing $600 and $800, to make his own yarn.

“I’ve become a yarn snob,” Neumaier said. “I think that’s the male side of knitting. Of course, you have to have the best tools. It’s a guy thing too to collect all the right equipment.

I know that while I don’t knit (I never made it past all those latch hook rugs thrust on kids in the 80s) I really do want to…But I absolutely wouldn’t veto the manliness of a yarn-obsessed dude who could sublimate his passion into a very fine baby alpaca jumper.

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Comments (5)
  1. A male nurse who knits. That’s probably not the example I’d use to try to break stereotype.

  2. Well, then: how about football players doing macrame?

    Just look up Rosie Grier’s “Needlepoint for Men.”

    And that was in ’73!

  3. ‘ey! What’s this ‘boys do it better’ crap?? >:P

  4. Love it!
    I taught my son to knit at age 9 and at 16 he knit me a scarf.
    I refreshed a retired golf pro how to knit so he could make a scarf for his wife at Christmas.
    Keep knitting!

  5. A dude who knits sounds pretty fruit to me. A great way to meet old rich widows perhaps, though.

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