Lisa Hoffman and Charles Atkins

Published February 24, 2005

Charlie writes:

I’ve just come from Lisa’s, and I’m worried. I call up one of her friends, not knowing how to handle this, and needing advice. "I’m a psychiatrist," I tell them. "I know what I’m talking about. Lisa has a substance abuse problem; I’ve seen the needles."

I hear the gasp on the other end, "Not, heroin!"

"Worse…knitting."

"It’s cruelty free; no animal has to suffer" Lisa starts, referring to a mound of fuzzy boas that has been steadily growing next to her riser chair.

At first, I hadn’t paid much attention. What’s the harm in a bit of knitting? It wasn’t until I realized how rapidly they were multiplying that I knew something was wrong…very very wrong.

"Everybody’s doing it," she explains. "I even called the company that makes this yarn—Lion Brand Yarn Company. It took me a while to find them, but I tracked them down to Carlstadt New Jersey. I spoke to their director, Ilana Rabinowitz, she was very helpful; she even sent me a box of free samples. And their web site is filled with all sorts of free patterns. She told me that, Fun Fur has become a phenomenon that has taken off. You can knit and crochet with it and mix it with other yarns and ribbons. She said, ‘It’s the hottest yarn in the market.’"

As Lisa talks, while flipping through the yarn catalog, my psychiatrist’s antennae bristle at the warning signs of addiction and dependence.

"Where ever you go," she says, trying to normalize her behavior, "people are knitting and this is the hottest of all the yarns; it’s eyelash fun fur; I love it. It comes in 37 colors, including tinsel, which is called Festive Fur. It really makes a statement. You can wear the plainest outfit, and throw on a stole and you instantly feel elegant, and get lots of comments. My friend Betty has already made twenty two. And she gives them to her friends."

"Did she give you one?" I ask, wondering if this Betty could be her supplier.
"No, but I didn’t ask....Betty got me started; they’re so easy to make, and not very time consuming. I can make one in two evenings. It’s very relaxing."

"Have you always knitted?" I ask, wondering if this is an addiction she’s hidden through the years.

"I learned it in school. I was eight and we were taught how to cast on, knit and purl; we made pot holders. I don’t do it much," she says, not making eye contact, and trying to minimize the extent of her behavior. "But I remember what I learned in school. I knit a different way than Americans. I have the thread on my left, whereas Americans have it on their right. You can almost tell what country a person is from by watching them knit.

"You should have been here yesterday. There were six of us…Les Girls. They came to have tea with me, but most of them had eyelash stoles around their neck. Pink and purple—my favorite colors.

"And a week ago when the woman came to do my hair, while I was under the dryer she pulled out her knitting and worked on a scarf, using a slightly different yarn called Divine. Not quite the eyelash, but still with a bit of fuzziness."

"I’m really possessed at times. I can’t stop. All of a sudden, it’s time for me to go to bed; but then I find I’ve got a new ball of yarn. I start knitting and it grows and grows and grows and two hours later I’m still knitting. It’s like potato chips; I can’t stop. And like this Festive Fur; it puts sparkle in your life. Of course you can make other things with it like capes, and ponchos and handbags. But the easiest is stoles…dozens and dozens of stoles. You can even get free patterns from the company’s web site."

"So it was Betty who gave you your first taste of fun fur?"

"Yes, she’s the president of Les Girls."

"Did she tell you it was potentially addictive?"

"Well…not right away…but I found out, that she and others are kind of possessed with it. And it’s so much fun doing it, you see it grow and grow."

"But what happens when you run out of yarn?" I ask, having made the diagnosis of addiction, but now wondering if it’s gone further; does she have a yarn dependency?

"Well then usually you’re at the end of what you set out to do. But the other night…I was working with the confetti yarn, and it said to cast on nine stitches, but I wanted more; I wanted it bigger…wider, so I cast on fifteen stitches, and before I knew it, the skein was gone. I needed more; it was late. I needed it; had to have it. I started to call yarn stores, but they were all closed and I just got their answering machines. I was desperate. I began to shake; it was horrible. I was in stitches…"

"Okay," I say, trying not to let her know how frightened I am by her chilling description of a withdrawal syndrome. "How big a habit do you have?

"What are you saying? I can stop whenever I want…I just don’t want to. Not for quite a while…and when I’ve had my fill; I’ll start making presents. Everyone will want one. After all it’s something I made and it will last for many years. And it’s washable."

"How many skeins a day are you up to?"

"It depends," she says, "it’s not that many…I can even knit while watching my soap; it’s fabulous!"

And then I realize that the free yarn from the Lion Brand company was like a drug dealer giving free samples on the playground. Or to quote Tom Lehrer’s The Old Dope Peddler, "Today’s young innocent faces, will be tomorrow’s clientele."

"My happiness hangs by a thread," Lisa comments, while flipping through the catalog, making notes and scribbling numbers on an order form. "I think it’s also good exercise for my hands, because I’m getting arthritis and moving my fingers helps…The bigger the needle, the faster the growth of the scarf," she mutters while ordering three colors of tinsel yarn. "And many close-knit relationships are being formed with this new hobby…I have turned into a regular knitwit. As opposed to you, who knit pick."

"You know what a nit is?"

"It’s a horrible little insect isn’t it?"

"It’s worse than that. It’s a baby crab-lice egg…so if you’re nit picking…got a visual?"

"No…you can’t do that! Not when we’re writing about my beautiful fun fur. But then," she ponders, "so where does nit wit come from?

"You’re an addict," I tell her point blank, realizing that I’ve stumbled onto a here-to-fore unreported epidemic of elder knitting addictions.

"It’s not just old women," she corrects me. "Everyone’s doing it. It’s fun and it feels good. Here," she pushes a pair of fat white knitting needles and a multi-colored ball of yarn into my hands, "why don’t you try?"

To contact The Lion Brand Yarn Company:

  www.lionbrand.com web site

1-800-258-YARN

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