Knitting in public

Alright, I'm going to come out here as being a public knitter. I knit in public. At the doctor's office, in line at the bank, in the middle of the grocery store, I knit wherever and whenever. I banged out a huge stripe on the Doctor Who Scarf in the middle of the new Batman movie. Now, I know a lot of people don't KIP because they get worried people will stare. I'm here to tell you that people DO stare. But usually, they ask you what you're making. Occasionally, someone will ask you if that's crochet (yeah, I don't know. I guess they pick the more obscure term because they think it will make them sound smarter?). Once in a waiting room I had a woman come across and sit next to me to watch what I was doing. In general, though, most people don't seem to notice. There are starers but if you make eye contact they'll either ask a question or stop staring for awhile. My former GP used to tell me stories about friends who knit whenever I'd come in.

I think it's odd that my experiences with the noble act of public knitting vary so far from the accounts I've read online and in books about knitting. In the book Stitch n Bitch (excellent and you should read it right now) the author says she's stared at like she was "churning butter on the midtown bus." The Yarn Harlot had a woman insist she was crocheting and after being corrected the woman insisted she knew the difference. I wonder if perhaps the fact that until recently I lived in a small conservative town (I have recently moved to another small conservative town but I digress). I do wonder why it might be and if knitting's exposure has really been increased so much in recent years or what. Maybe when I'm less tired I'll really examine that.