Knitting: A passion for needles and yarn

Sean Kennedy

Sean Kennedy

Her gaze rests intently on the two sharp needles dodging and weaving between her hands, the skilled tools of a craftsman working their magic on a thin strand of cloth.

For Rayelle Ulvog, knitting is one of the best activites in her life.

Ulvog, a sophmore business major from Groton, started knitting when she was 10 years old when her mother attempted to teach her how to knit.

“Back then I didn’t have the attention span for it,” she said.

She re-discovered knitting when she found an old unfinished high school project.

“I realized it was actually kind of fun,” she said, “I mostly do it for the fun.”

Now she spends a lot of her free time knitting. She knits while watching television, movies or even on break at work.

Her passion for knitting has even gotten her some extra money. Some of the things that she has knitted have been sold by her mother and grandmother at arts festivals and at their craft shop.

Ulvog sells regular hats for $18 and childrens hats for $15. She also commissions herself to her friends if they want to hire her to knit something for them.

Of the 15 hats and three scarves that she has knitted to sell, all of them have been purchased.

According to Ulvog, the thrill of knitting is making something with her own hands.

“The reason I like it in the first place is because I’m making it with my own hands. People paying money for it is just a bonus,” she said.

Her passion for knitting has also been infused into people around her.

“Three of my friends started after watching me do it all the time,” she said.

Ulvog has only knitted one item for herself in the year that she has been knitting, a sleeveless sweater.

She is also working on knitting a bikini, though it is still a work in progress, and a sweater with sleeves.

Ulvog uses only natural fibers when she is knitting, hailing back from her days on the family farm, when she would spin her own yarn out of the wool from the sheep that her family raised. Now she orders her yarn from a wholesale distributor.

She also surfs the net looking for new knitting patterns that she wants to try out.

Now planning a trip to Omaha to see a real knitting store, Ulvog admits how much of a passion knitting has become in her life.

“I’m obsessed.”

#1.887588:1989560041.jpg:knitting.jpg:Rayelle Ulvog, a sophmore business major, professes her love for all things knitting. Ulvog recently rediscovered her passion after giving it up during her childhood.: