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Knitting just for fun
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Long gone are the days when you had to knit sweaters, scarves and mittens for your family just to be warm.
Today's knitters do it for fun.
In grandmother's time, yarns were available only in basic colors and were a bit on the scratchy side. Yarn today comes in every color shade in the palette and the textures are soft and feel good next to the skin.
Projects tell a story
Donna Jefferson Fryman, Fleming County agent for Family and Consumer Sciences, has been certified as a master knitter and each year holds classes in Fleming County to teach others to knit.
Fryman has been knitting since she was a little girl.
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| Donna Jefferson Fryman learned to knit when a childhood friend, Dorothy Browning gave her some knitting needles. As the Fleming County agent for Family and Consumer Sciences, Fryman teaches knitting classes to homemakers in her county.
Photo by Laura Rains |
Growing up on Jersey Ridge in Mason County, Donna remembers the day her childhood friend, Dorothy Browning, came to her home one day after school.
"Dorothy knew how to knit and so I wanted to learn to knit, too," she said. "She gave me knitting needles."
Donna says she and her friend sat on her bedroom floor and made doll clothes.
Donna was used to trying new things. Even as a young girl of 7 or 8, she remembers watching her grandmother crochet and quilt, then she would try it herself.
After watching her trying her hand at knitting, her mother gave her a "Learn How" book.
"I could make things but I couldn't read a pattern," said Donna. "My mother gave me the book so I would learn how to read the patterns."
For her, the knitting phase didn't last very long. Instead, she was more likely to sew something by hand, with a sewing machine or complete a crochet project.
Donna didn't begin knitting again until after college when she began her career in extension work. Her first job was in Johnson County but after marrying Tommy Fryman, she moved to Fleming County 17 years ago and began working at the Fleming County Cooperative Extension office.
While pregnant with her first son, Ben, there was a knitting project she was eager to complete.
"There was a bunting I wanted to make for our new baby," she said.
Not knowing if she was going to have a boy or a girl, she chose a variegated yarn in pastel shades of soft yellow, mint green, pale blue and a very delicate shade of pink. Choosing a cable pattern, she crocheted the bunting with beige yarn and worked in the variegated yarn. Miniature pale yellow buttons were sewn in front from top to bottom.
"It was the most complex project I've ever done."
Even though the colors were very soft and the beige was the most dominant color, Donna said she dressed her newborn son in the bunting only one or two times.
In her work and in her spare time, Donna enjoys crocheting, quilting and sewing. But with knitting being the "popular" thing to do again, she says she decided to get her knitting needles out again a couple of years ago.
With knitted scarves being very fashionable, novelty yarns available everywhere and plenty of free patterns on the Internet, Donna fell in love with knitting again.
"Knitting doesn't require a great amount of concentration," said Donna. "For me, it's a great stress reliever."
With a stack of completed knitting projects around her, she says each piece represents a time in her life in the past few years.
She remembers working on a knitted piece while sitting with her ill grandmother.
"I remember the situation with each piece I've made," she said. "Not all of them turned out well, my grandmother didn't make it, but I remember being with family while I was knitting."
In the summer of 2004, her husband became ill and needed a liver transplant. In what Donna describes as a miracle, a donor liver became available in less than a week.
To prepare for the time she would be in the hospital with her husband during the surgery and the days following, she packed up several knitting projects to take with her.
Donna had a novelty yarn on hand she had ordered.
The yarn arrived in what she describes as a "big round twist." To make it manageable and to keep it from knotting, she needed to re-form the yarn.
She says she got lots of attention, and a few laughs, when she wrapped the yarn around and around the legs of a chair in her husband's hospital room.
During those weeks in the hospital Donna made dozens of scarves in different colors and textures.
After they returned home she sold some of the scarves at a craft fair, but she also donated scarves to CASA, Leadership Horizons, the Fleming County Hospital Auxiliary and other organizations to be sold as part of their fund-raising projects.
In addition to teaching classes in Fleming County, Donna also taught fellow agent Deborah Cotterill in Mason County how to knit.
Because of their busy schedules, if Deborah has a question about something she's working on or teaching, she usually calls Donna on the phone.
"We're getting pretty good at working it out over the phone."
A beginning knitter ... again
As a mailbox member of the Mason County Homemakers, Wanda Dixon gets the monthly newsletter. When she learned a knitting class was going to be offered, she decided to sign up.
Wanda knew a little about knitting, but she learned it on her own.
This time she decided to learn how to do it from someone who knew what they were doing.
Wanda also crochets, embroiders and sews. But when she wanted to learn to knit about 12 years ago, she dug around until she found a falling apart little book called "Learn to Knit."
"I can't help it, I'm a packrat," she said.
She still has many of the pattern books given to her by her late mother, Florean Shelton.
Her first project was a red cat.
"It was pretty easy to make," she said. "After I did the basic knitted squares you shaped them and stuffed them to form the cat."
Wanda didn't waste any time.
Her next project was a sweater. Of course, she still has it.
The winter white boat neck sweater has perfect stitching but Wanda says she has only worn it once or twice during the last decade.
"It's too big," she said.
Wanda says her mistake was not paying attention to the gauge with the pattern which shows the number of stitches it takes to complete an inch.
"I guess I got carried away."
Wanda put away her knitting needles for awhile but after the death of her husband, Gerald, she says she began looking for ways to help her pass the time.
An avid golfer, Wanda spends her evenings and cold weather months working on crafts.
Wanda attended the first knitting class at the extension office and started over learning the basic stitches.
She turned her first "practice piece" into a strapless dress and shawl for a doll she keeps at her house for her young granddaughters to play with.
During that class she also went armed with one of the new novelty yarns and asked Cotterill to help her start a scarf.
"I finished the scarf that night at home."
Because she tends to save everything, Wanda found a pattern for a stocking cap in a 1974 "Work Basket," a magazine which gave patterns and instructions for lots of different crafting methods.
"I volunteer at the Limestone Family YMCA so I'm making the cap for a program they have to give caps to children that need them," she said. "If it turns out, I'll give it to them and maybe make a couple more."
For information on knitting classes contact Donna Fryman at 606-845-4641 or Deborah Cotterill at 606-564-6808.
Contact Laura Rains at Laura.Rains@lee.net or by phone at 606-564-9091, ext. 275 |
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