Yarn Harlot vs. Craft Whore

On Friday night I had the pleasure of meeting up with some knittyheads (Melody, Babbling Stacy, Hellahelen, Chameleon, and Missamite) and going to Powels to see Stephanie Pearl McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot. Her talk was hilarious as usual and I felt very good about myself and the power of knitters to do good in the world. I also really appreciated her fighting back against the current trend of “Not your grandmother’s knitting” advertising. The Yarn Harlot countered that her grandmother was an excellent knitter. Which reminds me that so was mine. Even though I never met her, my father’s mother was an accomplished knitter and tatter (lace maker) even though she lost the sight in one of her eyes, she kept making beautiful things. Anyway I digress. She also brought up gender-stereotypes in knitting. How a woman knitting an intricate lace shawl is ‘cute’ and ‘quaint’, whereas a man knitting a fun-fur garter stitch scarf is a ‘bold innovator’. Grrr.

One thing I disagreed with her about though, was that Knitters identify themselves as such above other distinctions. That while those of us in the room were of a variety of religions, races, political leanings (somewhat unlikely in Portland… but her point was well taken), and generations, but we identified ourselves as Knitters above and beyond the other designations. Now, I’ll agree that when I pick up my needles & go hang out with my knitterly friends I am a Knitter. But I much more strongly identify myself as a Woman, and after that, a Portlander…and I’m sure I could come up with a number of other identities that are important to me, but I don’t think being a Knitter would rank any higher than Baker, Quilter, Museum Goer, PBS Watcher or Volunteer. Knitting is just one of the many things I really like to do with my free time. It’s not my primary identity. And as you can tell by my blog, there are times when certain crafts get much more of my attention than knitting does.

Stephanie Pearl McPhee calls herself the Yarn Harlot because she can’t be faithful to any one yarn… in contrast I’d have to call myself a Craft Whore because I really like to try different crafts, and I enjoy learning new ways to express my creative side. One problem with being a Craft Whore (or maybe I should say Jill of all Crafts), is that as long as I have a full time job, I’ll never really master any of them (the other problem is storage!).



I’ll never turn out complex cabled sweaters month after month interrupting myself to crank out a Victorian shawl here or there. It seems equally unlikely that I’ll ever be able to hand quilt a queen sized quilt at the level of those I saw at the quilt show. And that makes me a little bit sad, and occasionally insecure in the face of certain knit-blogs. But at the same time, I like knowing how to do a lot of different things, I like being able to switch between crafts depending on my mood or needs at the moment. Plus it gives me the option of combining some of these skills into one project. Given unlimited resources, I’d love to learn even more crafts, pottery, carpentry, weaving… anything. Someday maybe. ;-)


Anyway I love the Yarn Harlot, and she really made me feel good about all of my crafts. I think Knitters, and all Crafters deserve more respect than we often get. So in honor of her, I'm going to start showing off some of my other stashes.


The quilting stash (part of it anyway =P ) ... (yeah I was trying to knit some fabric... didn't work though... that particular project has been abandoned)Decade old cross-stitch WIPs. But look at all my embroidery floss!
Christmas angels from ... back in the day, and santa flannel for uh... I can't even remember. :-P
A purse that will be sewn up.... eventually.
Anyway, I'm coming out of the closet so to speak, about my promiscuous crafting. I knit, but I'm not a Knitter, and that's okay.