Needle and wool enthusiast and business owner Morag McKenzie tells Bruce Munro that knitting has become an entertaining and social creature.
An attractive pair of nearly-finished hand-dyed pink and purple handmade socks lying on a coffee table in Morag McKenzie's living room embodies the spirit of contemporary knitting.
''This is very much a pleasurable activity for people now,'' Ms McKenzie (39) says.
''Nobody has to knit garments or socks for their children anymore. So, what they do is for themselves.''
Ms McKenzie owns Vintage Purls, an online knitting supplies business which she runs full-time from her Dunedin home.
She also specialises in hand-dyeing yarn and fibre, as well as designing and selling knitting patterns.
The name Vintage Purls came from a knitting blog Ms McKenzie wrote.
She became well known for the blog, so it made sense to use the name when she started her business supplying the latest knitting yarns and tools.
As a child, Ms McKenzie learnt how to knit from her mother and grandmothers.
Then, at university, she knitted her own socks and jerseys, and just kept going.
Knitting is a portable craft and a good pastime for an active relaxer, she says.
''If you are stuck waiting in a queue, you can have a knitting project in your handbag to pull out, and suddenly time flies.''
She also enjoys the challenge of devising solutions to design problems thrown up by trying to create particular patterns or shapes.
''And you can produce something which you enjoy. I like that knitting isn't just decorative; that there is a useful aspect to it.''
Ms McKenzie has learnt and watched with interest as knitting trends have come and gone.
''Wartime, and postwar, people had to knit. There was no money, there was a lot of rationing. Clothes were a problem. You had to knit.''
The 1960s reaction against that chore, in favour of all things shiny, new and plastic, gave way in the 1970s to a resurgence in knitting.
''The earth-mother, hippie thing was all very natural: natural fibre, natural dyeing ...''
The knitting needles were put away again during the consumer-focused 1980s, only to return in recent years.
Knitting is no longer a cheap exercise in home economics. But that is not why most of today's knitters are casting on, Ms McKenzie says.
''A pair of hand-dyed, hand-knitted socks; the yarn alone is $22. They are vastly superior to machine-made, store-bought socks, but they are not cheap.
''But that is not what it is about. Twenty-two dollars for however many hours' entertainment is very cheap.''
And that is where it is at today. Knitting is an extremely social pastime, Ms McKenzie says.
Knitters regularly share ideas and experiences online, they gather at regular clubs and classes such as the ones Ms McKenzie runs, and they even get together for knitting retreats.
Ms McKenzie runs an annual knitting retreat in Dunedin.
''We spend three days in a hotel ... 120 knitters on the ground from all over New Zealand and Australia. A weekend of rowdy excess,'' she says with a laugh.
''People think of it as a solitary exercise; people sitting at home and knitting in front of the tele. But these days it is not; it is very social.''
