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Kathy Benjamin holds up an improbable black woolen head garment — a hybrid of bandit and scuba couture — at the Garrett Park Knitting Group.
"I suggested we do some kind of charity project," she offered. "… So we're all going to rob banks and then we're going to donate the money," quipped fellow yarn maven Anne Mizoguchi.
More rowdy than dowdy, the banter is typical of the upstart Garrett Park purlers, who have been meeting monthly since September to weave a little camaraderie into what might otherwise be a solitary, contemplative craft.
Not only has the group fostered new friendships, it's also an arena for the women to encourage each other on projects for impending grandchildren, friends, and in the case of Benjamin's mask, soldiers in Afghanistan.
"It's a helmet liner," Benjamin explained when the laughter subsided. "Apparently they get very cold."
The knitted cap, which fits over the head, cheeks and neck with a large hole for the eyes and nose, will be a warm buffer for a soldier in the sometimes-frigid mountain country, and is just one example of the charity knits coming out of the upstart organization. One woman knits items to sell, then contributes the money to breast cancer research. Another is about to begin knitting caps for premature babies.
Mizoguchi, who started the group with Benjamin and works at a Bethesda knitting shop, said the monthly meeting is all about kindred spirits.
"I knit alone most of the time, but there's something about being in the company of people that enjoy the same craft that brings a whole new dimension to it," Mizoguchi said. "It's a very inspirational environment."
Arleen Taub, in town from New Jersey to visit her daughter Natalie Shelton, thought the environment would be a good one in which to tackle a complicated patch-knit vest for her granddaughter.
"I'm a little nervous about this one, but what better time to start than with other knitters?" she said.
Shelton, despite being a quilter, came for the first time, too, to work on some wall hangings for her baby's nursery.
"It's nice because it gives me the opportunity to do the handwork, and I'd just be sitting by myself doing it in front of the TV," Shelton said.
Between stitches and counts, conversation is peppered not only with analysis of the state of the knitting industry and where to find the best yarn, but also current and local events.
"It's very congenial," said Gretchen Howard. "It's folks just sitting, knitting, talking about whatever's going on. It's a wide range in age, which is nice, too. It brings generations together."
It also unites yarnophiles in an environment where people actually understand them — how they could spend $15 on a small skein of yarn or hoard it in closets compulsively. Mizoguchi, who has been known to go on "yarn crawls" with friends from store to store, said soon she will drive all the way to Richmond, Va., to buy yarn, and nobody blinked.
"Do I need another skein? No. But there's a yarn shop I've never been to," she said.
"Part of it's just the actual, physical process," explained Benjamin of the appeal. "It's something to do."
And after a few meetings there's a new cap, sock, scarf, or even helmet liner as a legacy of the fun they've had.
"I love being able to give things away that I've made," Benjamin said, "whether it's somebody I know or somebody I don't know."
