Product and Process

My mom always says that knitting is like breathing, and through the years and many life mistakes I have learned that my mom is always right about pretty much everything. I was thinking about this as I read a column in Interweave Knits by Amy R. Singer the editor of Knitty.com. In this column she discusses the raging debate over process versus product knitting, process knitting being knitting for the simple act of knitting and product knitting being knitting just to get wonderful woolly items, and I concluded that this debate was silly because a person handknits for the process AND the product. No one really knits just for the product. Why would you when you can buy a billion really nice woolen goods for cheap that have been made in china? And no one really knits just for the process, why would you want to spend hours and hours of your time working on something that you don't really like? Because you like hand cramps? That doesn't make sense. I knit because I like the act of knitting and because I like it that my hands can make something functional and beautiful.

Back to knitting and breathing. Knitting is like breathing. Sometimes we take a deep breath to relax and recharge (process) but mostly we just breath to keep our brains fueled with oxygen (product). Either way breathing (and knitting) keeps us alive.