The Knitting Factory
I feel like an alcoholic stopping at a bar,” says Getty curator Mary Louise Hart as she digs her needles into the half-formed bulk of a sleeveless sweater, patterned after one in a BCBG ad. “I tell my husband I will be home in an hour and I stay here for two.”
Nearby, Justine Bateman is holding up a crocheted chocolate brown hybrid of a poncho and a serape. Seven pairs of knitting needles cease clicking. The women seated in a circle ooh and aah their approval as the actress provides an explanation as improbable as a “Family Ties” plot device. “I call this one a soncho,” Bateman says.
As on other Wednesday evenings, the circle has gathered at Studio City’s La Knitterie Parisienne, their skeins and patterns scattered around a common table as their work slowly takes shape. The conversation ranges from the outrageous price of a hand-knit sweater at American Rag Cie (costs less to make one, of course) to the kind of gossip that has earned some of L.A.’s growing knitting circles the sobriquet “Stitch ‘n’ Bitch.” This social club attracts many women and few men, along with the obligatory smattering of stars--Julianne Moore, Laurie Metcalf and Darryl Hannah sit in now and again. (Suss Design on Beverly Boulevard holds a knitting class Tuesday evenings, and L’Atelier on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica offers free instruction to drop-ins.)
In her Parisian accent, La Knitterie shop owner Edith Eig takes the table’s helm and, peering over her glasses, offers tips for the rank beginner and the simply insecure. “Don’t be afraid. I will take out paper and pen and write down the number of stitches for you,” she soothes actress Marissa Ribisi, who’s been knitting since she was a teen. “Everybody relaxes,”
Eig says. “Knitting alleviates tension.”
Bateman digs into her bag to show the circle her tiny alpaca wool bikini. (Where does one wear a wool swimsuit, anyway?) As for Hart, not until her takeout pizza arrives does she pack her sweater and needles and head home. “I’m late, of course,” she says, laughing on her way out.
