Knitters tell yarns about getting hooked

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With Santa on his way, his little helpers are more and more visible. You see them on them on the Metro, at the Kennedy Center, in restaurants, on park benches, and in church pews. They've got sticks, lots of colorful yarn, and an attitude.

They're knitters.

There are now more than 38 million of them in the United States, a doubling over the past six years, according to a Craft Yarn Council of America survey. Four million new people, most of them younger, pick up needles each year. And since 1988 there has been a 400 percent increase in the number of women under 35 years old who knit.

But the ancient craft -- King Tut's tomb included knitwear -- is by no means restricted to women.

Take Bruce Bush, a 56-year-old Prince George's County husband and father who for years has knitted, rather than bought, Christmas things for those he loves. By day he teaches second grade at Takoma Park Elementary School, but on his own time for about the past 10 years his hands have been in constant motion, knitting.

"It's fun because I tend to get restless and have a lot of energy," he says. "Knitting allows me to sit quietly."

The former carpenter relaxes with his needles in a weekend retreat north of Hancock, Pa., a classic log cabin in the woods that he built by hand over weekends a few years ago, rough-cutting the timber himself.

"I made a lot of Christmas gifts [by knitting]," he says. "We light a fire in the wood stove, sit by the windows, and knit. It's a way to calm down, to tune out stress."

The hideaway looks like something from a Clint Eastwood frontier movie. Cozy but austere, it has no television, no electricity or plumbing, only kerosene lanterns, a wash basin, and big piles of yarn everywhere.

There is a constant production of sweaters and socks and hats, everyday items for Mr. Bush's wife Rhoda, a librarian, and their 14-year-old daughter Sarah, and 19-year-old son Patrick, now off to college. Some knitted items are Christmas-wrapped, while others are simply given to friends, neighbors and colleagues.