Knitting Overtakes Gardening!

I recently had a coffee with Trevor Cochrane, half of the highly successful Australian Garden Guru�s team. If you are not aware on the Guru�s you can check out their website www.thegardengurus.tv Whilst we were discussing trends in the gardening industry Trevor also commented on the amazing increase in the popularity of knitting. Well, this got me thinking, can knitting overtake the garden industry as the number one hobby? Having checked the web I found that keen knitters included Cameron Diaz and Nicole Kidman. Teenagers are taking the hobby up and knitting and cafes are the places to be seen. Shops in California that a decade ago would have been lucky to generate $100,000 are now seeing sales in excess of $1 million. Click onto Google and there are hundreds of knitting pages and blogs on the subject. Plus look at the newsagents stands and look at the amount of magazines aimed at this hobby. According to Gene Ann Alberts of Gene Ann�s Yarns in Illinois, the trend started after 9/11 when people discovered the �nesting� feeling of knitting. The research on this hobby was commissioned by the Craft Yarn Council of America. Their last report was in 2004, the findings were: � 36% of American women know how to knit � 51% more than 1994 � 33% of women between 25-25 are knitting � 13% of women were knitting in 2002 in the same age group � Under 18 age group who knit has increased fro m8% to 16% � 55-74 age group has seen a 74% increase in knitting According to the guru�s, people are taking up knitting as a stress reducer as well as it is cool. And the biggest trend is in male knitters. This is an amazing swing in hobbies and has taken leisure money away from gardening. I�m not sure if knitting has yet to take over from gardening, but it�s on the way.