Knitting revival?

There's an interesting discussion going no over at Darilyn's message board that some might consider 'knitdweebish' beating of a dead horse, but I'm finding that it's a bit more intelligent than the usual 'meme's' of: "Well, I've been knitting for X years, so it can't be a revival".

I don't know if I would personally consider what's going on a 'revival', considering that fact that there are many of us who have been knitting for many years. I think of it as more of a resurgence. After all, knitting was a daily fact of life for many families for centuries. The women of the family knit, as did the children (girls and boys). In many instances the men of the family also knit.

Then it kind of went underground. It was no longer the part of daily life that it had been, but it was still being done. There were yarn stores, but they were few and far between, and the yarn wasn't always of the highest quality. But we knit anyway. Even when the only yarn we could get ahold of was acrylic from Woolworth's, we knit.

Then something happened. Some people think it was as a result of September 11th (personally, I couldn't knit on that horrible day, or for many days after-I was too stressed to focus). I think that they needed a 'reason' to knit again. And I don't look at it as a return to the 'domestic arts'; I mentioned that to my husband and he just laughed, because being domestic is *not* second nature to me.

Whatever it was that raised awareness of knitting, and I don't think we can pin point any one thing, it was only to our benefit. Yes, there are many new knitters, some who have picked up needles because it's suddenly trendy. Not every one of them will stick with it. Who among us hasn't tried something new and decided it just wasn't for us? So what? But some of those new knitters are amazing! And they are the ones who will keep it moving forward to the next generation.

We also benefit by the fibers that are available to us. I mean, 20 years later my first sweater, an acrylic thing from a pattern in Vogue Knitting, is still kicking. But I never would have considered bulky wool, cotton, alpaca, because I wasn't aware of it, or exposed to it. This resurgence has opened doors to options that just weren't readily available to me when I was a teenager.

If someone wants to consider it a revival, so be it. Like I said, I consider it a resurgence. The good thing about either of them is that it may slow down or receed, but things never go back to the way they were.