Optometrist deciphers ‘Greek’ in knitting directions

Posted 5/2/13

LEARN TO KNIT, CROCHET: Chaya Herzberg, an optometrist, will be teaching “Knitting, Crochet Craft Circle” in a five-session course for Mt. Airy Learning Tree, starting Friday, May 3, 4 to 6 p.m., …

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Optometrist deciphers ‘Greek’ in knitting directions

Posted

LEARN TO KNIT, CROCHET: Chaya Herzberg, an optometrist, will be teaching “Knitting, Crochet Craft Circle” in a five-session course for Mt. Airy Learning Tree, starting Friday, May 3, 4 to 6 p.m., at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, 8855 Germantown Ave. All skill levels are welcome. Call 215-843-6333.[/caption]

by Lou Mancinelli

It's spring and time for knitting with cotton yarn and making light, lacy sweaters. You may find a pattern for a beautiful lace shawl, and then you read the directions: “Cast on 112 stitches and establish lace pattern as follows: K1(Yo K2tog ssk Yo K1); repeat 3 times slip 3 sts to cable needle and hold in back.” And then you say to yourself, "Why didn't I study Greek in college?!!"

“If you look at it,” said Chaya Herzberg, a doctor of optometry who shared the above description from one of her knitting pattern books, “it’s almost like a foreign language. Different communities call different size needles different names.”

Maybe it is a stretch to compare learning to knit to learning a new language, but that matter aside, Herzberg will be teaching a five-session course, “Knitting, Crochet Craft Circle” though the Mt. Airy Learning Tree (MALT), starting Friday, May 3, 4 to 6 p.m., at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, 8855 Germantown Ave. She has taught the class for 10 years.

Herzberg, who said her age is “in my prime!,” learned to knit as a young girl from her grandmother in the family’s home in Monsey, a suburb of New York City. Her grandmother was the oldest of five children born in Russia. Her family lived in the Lower East side in Manhattan before she lived with her husband in the Bronx.

She learned to knit about the same time she learned to read. It was a tradition that when a neighbor, friend or family member gave birth, the knitting began. They made blankets, socks, sweaters and more to present as gifts. “It was a real bonding experience,” said Herzberg, a mother of two young adults who lives in Dresher with her husband, David.

In a way, that is what her class purports to be. It is set up like a self-paced circle of knitting friends. Herzberg calls it a needle-craft class. She teaches pattern literacy to knitters at all levels, so her students can understand the above-mentioned directions, terms and abbreviations associated with the craft. She will also teach and assist students with crocheting, lacework, embroidery, Icelandic designs and more.

Herzberg first moved to Philadelphia in the late ‘70s to attend the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated with a degree in developmental psychology, her earliest studies in neuroscience, in 1982. Five years later she graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry, where she taught for seven years after graduation.

While teaching she started her own optometric practice. Since then she has developed the practice into two offices, one in Princeton, N.J., the other in Bryn Mawr. While her practice serves children for the most part, she treats patients of all ages. She utilizes her neuroscientific education to treat victims of head trauma and strokes.

But in her free time, Chaya teaches knitting. She says one of the most difficult practices in knitting is tapping, or tiny, precise lacework done with a shuttle or needle. A shuttle is a spool of thread with a pointed end one can slide in one side of a knot and out the other. It is used to make a pattern, almost like macramé, a popular knitting pattern.

Through the years Herzberg has made fisherman-net sweaters with intricate cables, lace-work for curtains and more, but usually, she goes through phases when she makes lots of one item. Often those items become gifts. And true to her neuroscientific background, she said knitting appeals to her on another level. “It’s a side of the brain people don’t use a lot,” she said, referring to how people often read and write yet do not undertake physical activities that require intense concentration as well as muscle.

When it comes down to it, knitting is about patience, practice and fun, Chaya maintained. “My grandmother knitted to keep people in socks,” she said. “We don't have to do that today. Mills make socks, we can make art.”

For more information or to sign-up for “Knitting, Crochet Craft Circle,” visit www.mtairylearningtree.org or call 215-843-6333.

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