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Stick to Your Knitting

Some friends asked me to join them last weekend to go to a music festival out of town.  It was a wonderful offer that would get me away from home but having been out of town just a week ago, I declined with at least the thought, although I didn't say it, I should stick to my knitting at home.  Now I didn't literally mean knitting, I meant I had things at home to do.  But then I wondered what that colloquial phrase really means.

The truth about where "sticking to your knitting" originated is not easy to find.  It is often linked to a  similar idiom:  "smoking your own cigar".  Some suggest each is gender specific which explains why we need two of them.   On the personal level it generally refers to one not sticking one's nose into other people's business or that one shouldn't act as if they know something about something that they don't.  In short, don't be a busy body.

Tom Peters and Robert Waterman's 1982 In Search of Excellence, a best selling management book, linked the phrase to the business world.  In business it refers to the need for a company to stay true to what it does.  This was a time when businesses where conglomerating.  Peters and Waterman suggested among other things that managers should stay true to the business they know rather than become too diversified.  And according to Walter Isaacson in his book, Steve Jobs, "sticking to one's knitting" was advice Jobs often gave when asked how to succeed in business.  If these juggernauts of the private sector feel this figurative phrase is instructive, I think I'll continue to use it and let other guess what I really mean when I do.

My weekend knitting, a start of a sweater
I did stick to knitting this weekend as planned; the house is clean, laundry done and there's food in the refrigerator.  I did what I know and didn't stick my nose where it didn't belong.  Oh, and I started another infant kimono sweater in cotton.  It needs another sleeve and edging, but it's nearly three quarters complete.  Expect to see it again because I intend to add button flowers to the front.  So for this weekend I did stick to knitting, all the way around.
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