For 50-year-old Hurwitz, a Willow Glen resident and owner of Knitting Arts in Saratoga, the love affair began before knitting was "in."

She learned to sew at age 12 but was only introduced to knitting by a co-worker about 10 years ago.

"It struck a spark in me," she says. Hurwitz began knitting on her lunch break at a software company and says it quickly became the best part of her day.

"It's like therapy and gives you the feeling of being centered," she says.

While knitting and crocheting allow those like Hurwitz a way to unwind, the activity also creates a sense of community among women, she adds.

"Knitting becomes a medium to communicate," Hurwitz says. A group of knitters who know nothing about one another have an automatic connection with fellow knitters or crocheters. After spending two to three hours enjoying the knitting process and exchanging tips, the conversation easily shifts to more personal topics like family, she says.

"It's the way women have always supported each other," Hurwitz says. She adds that it harkens back to the days of quilting bees and sewing circles.

One group of five women with diverse interests met through a class at Hurwitz's store and "had such a ball" that they continue meeting regularly, she says.

Rather than just a hobby to decorate the home, Hurwitz says, knitting has become an art form in which color, texture and fiber come together in a final product.

"It's the whole process of having the yarn move through your fingers," she says. "It's a repetitive motion like a mantra, and the beauty is visual and tactile."

While Hurwitz loves a sparkly scarf or a hip poncho, she also likes to knit the traditional cable sweater, prizing the variety of patterns and materials to work with, she says.

Whether knitters prefer the latest patterns from Vogue Knitting, a cable sweater or a crocheted afghan depends on their sense of style and who they're knitting for, Hurwitz says.

"An older person might have used traditional yarns all their life because that's what they're used to," she adds. And while some knitters conform strictly to traditional methods like an online knitting chat group Hurwitz belongs to, others are more flexible.

The chat group, Knitting Beyond the Hebrides—islands northwest of Scotland—believes there must be 10 stitches to the inch. But Hurwitz isn't as stringent. Her knitting philosophy is simple: "Create something that gives you joy in making it."

Craft Craze

Along with the pleasure discovered in the craft comes the desire to pass on the tradition, making the activity cross-generational, Hurwitz says.

"We see a fair amount of moms and daughters and some families with three generations," she adds.

Thirty-eight-year-old Peri Bassett learned to crochet—which uses one needle called a crochet hook—as a child from her mother and studied knitting—using two straight needles—in a book 20 years ago. A mother of three children, she enjoys knitting for them and has already taught her 8-year-old daughter to knit.

"She's made a Barbie dress and a mohair purse," Bassett says.

Besides sharing an interest with her daughter, she says knitting helps relieve stress.

"When I need to regroup, I knit more," Bassett says. "It's a bit of an addiction."

Then there is Dominica Gotelli, a 41-year-old Willow Glen resident, who enjoys talking about her knitting passion with other enthusiasts.

"Everywhere you go, you see people knitting," she says. "The other day I saw someone knitting in the window and I wanted to stop the car and run in and talk about it."

Part of a needlework group called Stitch N' Bitch, Gotelli laid aside her cross-stitching and picked up knitting two years ago after she learned a friend was making hats for parents at Good Samaritan Hospital who had lost their infants.

"It's a neat gift to give the parents," she says.

Gotelli says her dedication has grown to where she knits almost daily. It's done either at home before she goes to bed, while meeting friends on Sunday afternoons at Orchard Valley Coffee in Campbell or when she goes to her 87-year-old neighbor's house.

"My husband says, 'Can you take your face out of that?'" says Gotelli, laughing.

She says she turned her aunt and five other friends into "very religious" knitters.

"It's beyond the point where I can help them fix it if they get stuck," she says.

Although she's relatively new to the activity, the social knitting culture is what she enjoys.

"We meet at someone's house and have popcorn and lemonade," Gotelli says. "It's like the old days. It's a real throwback to meatloaf and Betty Crocker."

Although knitting used to be considered a traditional homemaking skill, "it's a cool thing for young girls to know and take through their whole life," she says.

"Those cute little hats you buy from Urban Outfitters for $40, you can make for $12," Gotelli says.

She adds that the sweaters that Santana Row's Anthropologie store is now selling have a homespun, retro look that hand knitters can create themselves.

To fund her knitting habit, Gotelli works one day a week at Knitting Arts, where employees receive store discounts. She also searches for old knitting magazines at garage sales.

"It's creative, you can bring it anywhere, and it's fun to show off," Gotelli says.

Healthy Habit

She notes that knitting appeals to all age groups: "The clienteles are from 8-year-old girls to the nuns to the hip 20-year-olds to the gals in their 40s like me."

When Gotelli went to the beach with her son's class on the last day of school, she says 10 of the 30 mothers were knitting.

For Ann Leever, 57, of Willow Glen, all it took was a friend's example and a student newspaper article to inspire her to return to her yarn and needles. She taught herself to knit in high school in the 1960s, making sweaters, scarves, afghans and leg warmers. But her unfinished projects sat untouched in her closet for the last 20 years, until this summer.

On a day-long car trip with another couple in June, Leever says, her friend pulled out a long, skinny scarf with yarn like she'd never seen before.

But it wasn't until she read in the De Anza College newspaper La Voz —De Anza is the community college where she also works—that knitting had become the new college fad that she was spurred on to go looking for the "luscious, yummy yarns that are available now," she says. "These are not your mother's yarns."

Leever likes to knit because of the variety of yarns and beautiful, smooth bamboo needles, she says. "It might sound silly, but for me it is a form of therapy and meditation all in one."

Amanda Weingarten also finds knitting soothing.

"It has a sneaky, subtle meditative quality that really helps me relax," says the 32-year-old, who lives in Willow Glen. "I'm amazed that clicking those sticks together can potentially yield something beautiful."

Weingarten learned the rough basics from a woman at a yarn store called The Knitting Room on Hillsdale Avenue before going on a flight to England five years ago.

She wanted to keep herself occupied on "a painfully long and daunting plane ride," she says. But she adds that the days of knitting aboard planes are definitely over because of stricter security measures and needles being viewed as potential weapons.

Weingarten says she prefers traditional scarf patterns, but likes selecting trendier yarn. Many of her friends have already submitted requests for scarves, she says.

Even when friends and family members cease wanting knitted items, it's a lifelong skill that is hard to give up.

Women at the Willows Senior Center on Lincoln Avenue can often be found working on projects that are donated to various convalescent homes.

"Our families have all the afghans they want, but we like to crochet, so we do it for a good cause," says 72-year-old Lee Billings.

The group called Volunteers for Others consists of approximately 20 members who meet at the senior center on Mondays between 9 a.m. and noon to knit, crochet and sew for other seniors using only donated materials, says leader Dorothy Register, 84.

"It keeps us out of mischief," Dorothy Macafee says.

Mary Senkarik says the group is a great source of support for the seniors who attend.

"You don't have to stay home watching TV or waiting for your children to call," says the 75-year-old. "We still have a lot of years and intelligence."

Creative Comfort

It also contributes to other people.

"You put happiness into it," says Senkarik, as she holds a lap robe she's crocheting, "and it continues to the next person."

While knitting and crocheting is considered a new pastime for the younger crowd today, in her generation, needlework was expected, she says.

Senkarik remembers her mother scolding her for not crocheting to show she was a lady when her future husband came to call.

"You had to show your qualifications to sew, knit and cook," she says.

Patti Thorp, 64, doesn't attend the group that meets at the senior center, but has a five-day-a-week date to crochet with a widowed neighbor.

"We just chitchat," she says. "It gives her something to do so she's not alone."

Thorp learned to crochet in 1970 from her co-workers at Memorex on their lunch break.

"It's fun. I find it relaxing and do it as my husband drives," she says.

Thorp knows that crocheting is something that appeals to a broader variety of people than the grandmother stereotype.

Her husband even tried to pick it up in the hospital until he became embarrassed when a nurse walked in, she says.

Even Thorp's 13-year-old grandson has tried to learn.

Men can be as good as women, she says, citing an older gentleman who works at The Knitting Room who knits and crochets.

Ageless Appeal

Knitting actually originated with fishermen who wove nets to fish and garments to keep themselves warm, says Knitting Arts general manager Leigh McRae.

Hurwitz says that both genders and a broad customer base from age 6 to 90 years old show that the art of knitting is timeless.

But she adds, it's heavily weighted in the 20s and 30s age bracket.

She says her employees recognize an avid knitter by whether or not they have a "stash" of unused yarn.

"We all laugh, because they confess and feel better and then buy more," she says.

That's the way it went in her life.

After she left her job at Portal Software as the vice president of technical support three years ago to spend more time with her 8-year-old son, knitting became a bigger part of her life. She had an entire room at home full of yarn, and she started working at the yarn store where she shopped in Saratoga—the Braid Box, which became the Knitting Arts, now owned by Hurwitz, who bought the business, changed the name and moved it across the street.

While owning a business occupies much of Hurwitz's time, she still likes to steal some private moments to knit each day.

"My favorite is in the morning, with a cup of coffee in the green chair with my cats," she says.

It's the simple comfort and creativity that makes the activity appeal to many, she says. And although knitting's resurgence and celebrity appeal has made the craft popular and fashionable again, for Hurwitz it is a whole lot more.

"It's an integral part of life," she says. "I can't go a day without it."

The Knitting Arts is located at 14554 Big Basin Way in Saratoga. For more information, call 408.867.5010 or visit www.GoKnit.com. The Knitting Room is located at 3189 Meridian Ave. For more information, call 408.264.7229.