Yup, it’s Friday, and that should mean the funnies. It’s hard coming up with jokes all the time though, so this week I only have 2, but am going to make up for it with a little something extra. We’re going to look at celebrities who knit – tying it all into the small world syndrome, maybe somebody knows one of them directly or indirectly. Who knows – maybe we can use the six degrees of separation to link them up in our small world. So the jokes first:
Q. Why couldn’t the blond learn to knit? A. She couldn’t find left handed knitting needles! Sorry to all the blonds out there, but you know I’m an equal opportunity mocker :-).
Did you hear about the knitting comedian? She left the audience in “stitches”!
So over the last little while, I’ve been doing some research to see which celebrities knit. Now i have to confess that I’m not a celebrity watcher myself, but it seems a large portion of the population is, and well, anything that will help elevate the craft to where it should be (we will one day rule the world), is okay in my book. So with that being said, I found a surprisingly long list of well known celebrities that knit. Please feel free to add any you know that I missed in your comments (there are a lot more).
Debbie Reynolds, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and The Dionne Quintuplets are (were ) all knitters. Yes, some are perhaps before your time, but it’s cool to know that knitting was always something any and everybody could do. Amongst the more current knitters:
Grommit is a knitter. At least, he’s depicted as a knitter in animation. Since he is an animated character, we’re not really able to count him, but we’ll put him down under the heading of honorable mention. As you discovered last week Cary Grant was a knitter – at least for a few minutes in the movie Mr. Lucky. That’s enough to mention him at least here, especially since the list of males is a little short (come on guys, pick up the sticks). As for other men, actor Tim Daly (Pete Wilder on Private Practice and lots of movies), is a well known celebrity knitter who has no qualms about people knowing he knits. Way to go Tim! Also, Mark Valley (Christopher Chance of Human Target) is a male knitter. I have actually met Mark when working on set and seen him knitting. He’s very modest and says he’s just does scarves and hats, but I’m sure he’ll graduate to bigger and more complex things very soon.
Luckily for me, not only Human Target, but the hit show Fringe are filmed in Vancouver, BC, and I have had the pleasure of working on both of them numerous times. I say luckily, because Mark knits, and so does his wife Anna Torv (Olivia Dunham on Fringe). From the same show, so does Jasika Nicole, who knits and draws as well. Jasika is also a Raveler – great to see! As these two shows become even bigger hits, it will be interesting to see if their knitting practices becomes mainstream knowledge. Another show filmed in Vancouver that has a knitter is Smallville – with Annette O’Toole. Annette actually had quite a few members of the cast and crew of Smallville collaborate and knit a blanket that was auctioned off with the proceeds going to charity.
Scarlet Johansson, Uma Thurman, Dakota Fanning, and Julia Roberts are all well know knitters. So are Madonna, Venus Williams, Nicole Kidman, and Cameron Diaz. Julia has gotten almost as much attention for knitting scarves on set as she has for her starring role in Pretty Woman. Catherine Zeta Jones is passionate about knitting – so much so that she taught Antonio Banderas how to knit while they were on the set of Zorro. I’m pretty sure Mike Douglas has learned as well, but without confirmation, I really can’t say. Anybody out there know for sure? Kristin Davis has been a knitter for years, and taught her Sex and the City pal Sarah Jessica Parker the craft on the set as well.
Even though she is allergic to wool, Debra Messing of Will and Grace fame is an avid knitter. Kate Moss tries to hide her ability to knit because she thinks it’s uncool – I find that extremely funny.
Tracey Ullman loves knitting so much she has co-written a book with an LAstore owner – Mel Clark – called Knit 2 Gether. It’s available in bookstores everywhere.
One of my favorite celebrity knitters (I admit to having a crush on her since I first saw her in the movie) has moved out of the Hollywood spotlight to make a living by knitting. Karen Allen may be best remembered for her role in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but has been a hand knitter for most of her life. She opened a studio in Massachusetts in 2004, where she designs, manufactures, and sells incredible knitwear. She has a website that you should take a moment to have a look at – it’s absolutely stunning. She also blogs about machine knitting. Here are the links:
Like I said before, there are many more and every day more and more seem to come out of the woodwork. Here is a collage of a few of them …
You probably noticed Russell Crowe in the collage with a set of needles, appearing to knit. Well, while this was a big boon to the Mew Who Knit scene for about 32 seconds, it was very quickly shown that Russell does not knit. It’s a pretty cool picture though. To the best of my knowledge, neither Spock nor Lenoard Nimoy knits, but the geek in me had to borrow this popular Gravatar for this article 😉
Hugzzz 😎