Knitting and Legos: A Contrast in Labor and Play

During our recent trip to visit family in Eugene, Ally asked my grandmother to teach her how to knit. Making the unfamiliar passes, loops, and returns of thread on the obtuse needles, Ally slowly progressed from a swath of coagulated yarn to something resembling a bookmark to something steadily growing in length.

Daily, Ally practices knitting; “If I don’t do it everyday, I think I might forget how.”

What I am intrigued by is the difference she and I perceive in the process. Frustrated with how slowly it takes to create something, Ally points out how much faster and easier it is to “just buy a $10 scarf.”

Of course, she’s right. And frankly, I don’t find myself interested in investing that much time in learning how to and then actually knitting a scarf.

But then again … what if knitting was Legos? Two years ago, I spent the good part of a week slowly following the instructions to build a Lego replica of Fallingwater. It sat on the windowsill for a while until the Santa Ana winds blew it over and made short work of Wright’s architectural masterpiece. Even several decades beyond the intended age of Legos I find myself drawn to the allure of creating, exploring, building. Even when it takes a long time.

Perhaps because I’ve grown up recognizing Legos as “fun,” I am compelled to invest time in them. Perhaps because of their impracticality (it wouldn’t be very easy to wear a Lego scarf … but it would be awesome) they will never feel like labor the same way that knitting will. Perhaps because there is no wrong way to build Lego structures they are shielded from the required rote practice of knitting correctly.

3 thoughts on “Knitting and Legos: A Contrast in Labor and Play

  1. Adriene

    I had a similar discussion with my husband yesterday about a friend of ours who has decided to learn how to speak Spanish. My husband couldn’t understand why he would do such a thing, and yet he has no problem with me spending hours of my time and hundreds of my dollars knitting scarves, shawls and sweaters by hand. I think that we all have our passions, and when we find them, we see nothing of investing our time and energy into it. What is difficult and time-consuming becomes exhilarating.

    What if knitting were Spanish? Or model trains? Or Nintendo DS? Or Wii? Or soccer?

  2. Ace

    The only problem with that is that there is no wrong way to knit. The only thing that really qualifies is wrong is not getting the result you intended. English, Continental, Portuguese, some other methods I forgot or haven’t heard of, patterns, freeform, whatever.

    You don’t have to like to knit or want to learn, but there are plenty of other reasons to feel that way.

  3. Amanda Hogg

    Way to sneak a lewd picture in your blog and title it “knitting.” Do you know how many old ladies will see that and think “Oh my!” Lots, that’s how many.

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