Riding the bus down to work this morning I was humming away on my anthropologie-inspired caplet when a rider gets on and sits across from me and he says, “Are you knitting me socks?” My response to this question is usually snarky, but all I could muster up today was a murmur and groan, hopefully hiding the boil in my blood system.

I am the kind of knitter that knits wherever I go. This means that whenever I am knitting in public space someone feels entitled to comment. Often it’s from flight attendants, old men who wanna talk to a sweet young lady, and middle-aged women who think that younger women aren’t domestic anymore. I find it annoying and invasive for a few reasons:

First, I started out as a knitter who knit for others but that’s over now. I knit for myself and love it! I feel a sense in pride in letting down my “must do whatever I’m good at for other people” guard and making self-crafting my personal mantra. Why stop now?

Second, it’s not okay for men to think that the knitting they see me do in public is for them, even if it’s a way to talk to me. Way to start off on a bad foot! Women and knitters are not here to serve strangers with our crafts.

Third, the women who ask me what I’m knitting or when I started knitting don’t bother me as much, but I get irked when they say they used to knit but got too busy being a mom and working to knit and never picked it up again, as if I’m young and I can knit whenever I want without life repercussions. Also, I’m not fond of the refrain, “You don’t see many women doing that these days”. Because we are.

Now that my rant is over (phew!) I’m going to go back to knitting in public and maybe, just maybe, I’ll not be so tired next time and let it out.