Our communities and social networks have been changing ever since the era of the hunters and gatherers and before.
Knitting, quilting and sewing circles, usually in geographically and / or culturally local areas have been with us, in many forms, for just as long.
Now we often live geographically distanced from our communities of shared interest, families, friends. Yet as we have become more disjoined from our physical support communities, so unimagined advances in technology and the growth of cyber-social-networking enables us both to stay connected with our geographically and time-poor friends and family, and to connect with new global communities of interest.
I am quite amused to see how the patterns of social beings are being reinvented and transformed today.
So it is that the roots of communal knitting circles are now marked by an annual worldwide knit in public day. I joined in on Saturday 11th in London - which I heard about through the Internet.
And I connected with a collective of people with a shared interest. And with at least 2 individuals that I would never otherwise have crossed paths with in the sprawling mass of millions of people who inhabit or pass through London.
Twitter and facebook have their uses. But they cannot create those moments of syncronicity which are instrumental in weaving our connections through the happenchance of the meeting of interests, minds and physical presence from which something might grow.
And just because there was a dedicated day for world wide knit in public - this does not mean that for the rest of the year I have to knit and stitch only in private, or symbolically in my work.
In fact, only the other evening I bravely got out my knitting in public. Eventually a bloke on the next table said "I can't believe you're knitting in a pub in Mayfair!" And so connections were made, conversations and banter were enjoyed.
And last Friday A and V (the two women I had met at the WWKIP day) braved the rain to visit the wilds of South London, and we spent an evening swopping yarns (ie our life stories) at Rebato's, my local Spanish tapas bar.
Our meeting was a prime example of syncronicity at large in the world. And talking of worlds - next Saturday's outing is to the Stitched Science exhibition at the Science Museum, London. Knitters from all over the world have contributed stitched and knitted elements ranging from DNA to a fully knitted solar system. It'll be different, that's for sure.
