Madame Defarge in a scene from Tale of Two Cities

When a greeting card company hijacked René Descartes’ oft-misquoted aphorism with ‘I knit, therefore I am, it was meant to be a joke.

Now, such is the metamorphosis of an ancient craft more recently dismissed as the preserve of doting grandmothers and bored housewives, knitting being hailed as ‘the new yoga’ and even making a simple scarf has assumed a spiritual dimension.

The ability to create with two sticks and a ball of yarn and derive mental peace from the process was once an undervalued ‘domestic art’, derided as ‘women’s work’. But knitting is undergoing a worldwide revival—not only because handknits are fashionable, but because of a resurgence in crafts, creative and stay-at-home activities.

That resurgence is part of a move to simple living and a renewed appreciation of handmade goods. Says leading trend forecaster Faith Popcorn: ‘Smooth, shiny and uniform is now equated with crude and cheap, especially when compared with the individuality of hand crafted products.

'We are hungry for things that have touched human hands...any craft as applicable and pragmatic as knitting has a great future.'

Knitting is also taking its place as a medium for the creation of installations and art pieces.

In Massachusetts, Jessica Fenlon Thomas’s Hair Shirts series, which explores social roles and the Catholic iconography of her childhood, includes a tight, seamless garment knitted with yarn spun from her own hair and another knitted in steel wool and embedded with nails which face inwards.

In Toronto Janet Morton, who examines our relationship to everyday objects in her work, sat in a storefront daily for a month, knitting the headlines from local newspapers on a set which included a Rocknit Video of twenty women knitting in unusual circumstances. The result: a monumental, 1000-ball work, Newsflash: Madame Defarge Eat Your Heart Out.

And US-based Icelander Hildyr Bjarnadottir has drawn on the Icelandic tradition of lace knit shawls, using her computer to manipulate images of those shawls to create new and confronting, large-scale images.

It's all a long way from knitting grey school jumpers-but even that simple act of creating a handmade item for a loved one has assumed a new credibility. 

Knitting's popularity has been growing for several years-a response to the pace of life and mass market consumerism. But with September 11 came not only reduced demand for air travel, but more time and enthusiasm for home-based activities. It heralded a renewed concern for home and family, translating into greater interest in crafts and unlocking creativity.

The earliest examples of knitting were found in Egyptian tombs dating back to the seventh century, but its rebirth began in the US, where the latest craze is knitting and yoga classes—yes, together. The bodily contortions are mind-boggling, but books such as The Zen of Knitting tap the trend. A recent Craft Yarn Council of America survey found 62  per cent of knitters say it helps relieve stress. It also found 38 million US women can knit—that’s one in three. The number of male knitters was not reported.

Susan Gordon Lydon's book of essays The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice tackles knitting not as projects but as process, seeing it as a path to contemplation.

In creating craft, 'the inner being may emerge in all its quiet beauty.

The very rhythm, of the knitting needles can become as incantatory as a drumbeat or a Gregorian chant,’ she writes. While Lydon takes the lessons she has learned from knitting—sitting still, focusing the mind, asking for help—and applies them to the rest of  her life, Deborah Bergman’s The Knitting Goddess, draws on ancient myths and tales to elucidate knitting’s spiritual benefits. Each chapter applies the story of an ancient goddess to a practical knitting technique.

Knitting fever spread to the UK and Europe and has now reached Australia, with more young people are taking up what was traditionally an older person’s craft.

Hip young knitters are featuring in major newspapers, Good Morning Australia visited Sydney's Cricketers' Arms knitting group and Craft Victoria recently alerted us to the knitting clique at Melbourne's Revolver nightclub.

US designer and knitting writer Lily Chin’s newly published The Urban Knitter was a co-operation with 20 hip young urban knitters to create a wardrobe of designs they want to knit. With a 400 per cent increase in the number of American knitters aged under 35 between 1998 and 2000, knitting groups with names like Yarn Divas and Stitchin’ Bitches are springing up on US university campuses.

The popularity of handknitting has been boosted by celebrities who knit and extol the joys. Madonna and Julia Rogers are doing it, Harry Potter is wearing it and exponents range from former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright to model Kate Moss and singer Eartha Kitt. Actor knitters include Sandra Bullock, Cameron Diaz, Hilary Swank, Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, Goldie Hawn, Uma Thurman and Mary-Louise Parker (now knitting hats for boyfriend Billy Crudup). Even ‘our’ Russell Crowe has been pictured with needles and yarn. No word yet on ‘our’ Kylie or ‘our’ Nicole—but stay tuned: celebrity pulling power is turning young people on to their own creative instincts. When Julia Roberts wore a self-made hat in one of her movies and a handknitted sweater she designed on the cover of McCall's, huge demand for those designs and for knitting lessons resulted.

Hand-knitted sweaters have featured in movies including Chicken Run, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Cider House Rules. It took New Zealand designer Kathy McLauchlan a week to make each large, knitted tunic for Lord of the Rings, but she had to knit one in three days when one was lost. She and a team of six made 50 items such as tunics, leggings and hoods to be worn alongside chainmail.

Miss Ireland wore a handknitted gown by a leading Irish designer in the recent Miss World evening gown competition. And cutting edge advertiser Absolut Vodka has featured a handknitted bottle cosy.

At a recent baby shower for a star of The Practice stars all took a knitting lesson, then knitted a square for a baby blanket. The ‘Hollywood knitting guru’ owner of the knitting store involved is arranging a celebrity handknitted blanket auction to raise funds for charity.

Knitting has been described as an exploration of self—and isn’t that true of all crafts. And while it may seem a stretch to view making baby bootees as a journey of discovery, pause to recall your own humble beginnings as a craftsperson.

Italian performance artists Sissi, who transforms her body into living works of art, often using knitting, knitted a gigantic chandelier in pink plastic and become its last hanging crystal for a performance in Florence. Last year she transformed herself into a water nymph, lying atop a leaf knitted from fishing floats and line, atop a Belgian pond. But even Sissi probably began with a doll’s scarf.