The Hat Whisperer

Maine Medical Center and Stephens Memorial Hospital anesthesiologist Angus Christie started knitting in high school and never looked back. "The boys on the ski team were supposed to go running with the head coach while the girls were supposed to knit hats, and as a penalty for saying something that would now be considered politically incorrect, I was told to go knit hats with the girls. I was the only boy in a room full of teenage girls, so it was a win-win for me."

Now, "I have bags of knitting in all of the cars, so if I have to pick up one of the kids and it's an hour wait, I just sit in the parking lot and knit. Two of my three sons knit, and one made a blanket for me using PVC pipe as knitting needles with yarn as thick as your wrist. It looks like a big rope you'd tie up a yacht with, but it's wool."

At the start of the pandemic, "someone gave me a book thinking I was a quilter, so I started quilting in May of 2020 and have made 25-30 quilts. Knitting and quilting are both very mathemat -

YARN WITH A TWIST “ e next generation of knitters is very concerned about sustainability and the environment,” says Anderson Plourd, “so a lot of them get sweaters from Good Will and unravel them for yarn.”

Isn’t that bad for business? “I don’t just rely on yarn sales. I have a café as well. Nowadays you need multiple income streams to survive as a small business, and I have three: ical to me, so they just make sense. I usually follow a pattern, but sometimes I'll see a picture in a magazine and I can figure out how to re-create it. Or I've had nurses bring in hats that have been chewed by their dogs, and I can fix them. I'll unravel a few rows to the point where everything's normal, pick up the stitches, and close it back up again, much like surgeons do with the good tissue surrounding a wound." yarn/knitting supplies, food, and alcohol each contribute a third of my revenue.

Next knitting project? "A bunch of mini Christmas stockings 3–4 inches tall to decorate Maine Med next year."

"I host wine and yarn ‘tastings’ where I pair wines from di erent countries with yarns from those countries, like malbec with alpaca from Chile. I sell cashmere, silk, angora, mohair, and camel yarns from all over the world."

Granny On The Go

When I started traveling for work, I found that crochet was a perfect way to pass the time on cross-country ights,” says Leino, an accountant and HR administrator. “ ough some projects are more portable than others. It’s a lot harder to bring a quilt with you than it is to pack a pair of half- nished mittens.”

“I take my knitting with me everywhere,” says Chambers. “Even camping and hanging around the re.” But like 80 per-

Chelsey Chambers

cent of granny-hobby enthusiasts, “I prefer a night in to a night out these days. I’m always in bed by 10 p.m.—usually 9 p.m., to be honest—and I love getting up early.”

Leino describes herself as “a homebody” and Voltin, a member of multiple book clubs, loves “reading with a full a ernoon tea complete with shortbread and nger sandwiches.”

But “I don’t think my wardrobe or decor re ects anything granny,” Chambers says. “I’ve been inspired to make one quilt by seeing more modern-looking designs that are still handmade.”

And in Leino’s home, “ ere are no doilies on the co ee table, if that’s what you mean.”

I'M MY OWN GRANDPA Granny hobbies nowadays are more gender neutral. “I really love cars,” says Chambers, “so being able to work on them self-taught makes me feel empowered and capable, regardless of my gender.”

“It's a big misnomer that men don’t knit,” says Anderson Plourd. “I get a ton of men coming in. Knitting’s big with the medical community—it’s all about stress relief. A lot of nurses who come in were taught by other nurses between shi s. e head of anesthesiology at Maine Medical Center—who’s a man—is a big knitter.”

Granny Goes Viral

There have always been people pursuing these hobbies, but in recent years a huge amount of content on YouTube and TikTok has been dedicated to them, and Pinterest is a bastion of granny cra ers,” Leino says. “People can now learn, meet new friends, and share their hobbies with a huge online community.” Yet “these kinds of hobbies are very unplugged,

Passions

which is a nice contrast to working on a computer or watching TV to unwind.”

“As a person whose memory of a pre-internet age is admittedly fuzzy, I think we crave things that are tangible, tactile alternatives to the eeting aspects of our digitally dominated culture,” says Baxley, a restaurant worker who goes antiquing (Maine’s most popular granny hobby) weekly, at least. “We as a species evolved with cra , not crypto mining, a er all, so it can help satisfy a deep need.”

“I’m a digital marketer by day who spends all her time in front of a computer,” Chambers says. “Creating digital work is fun, but doesn’t feel the same as physical creations that I spent hours on. I love telling someone, ‘Yes, I made that!’” n

Sherman S

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