Crafty Truckers

Yesterday during lunch I was reading my newspaper when I saw a headline that caught my eye. “Idle Pastime: In Off Hours, Truckers Pick up Stitching.”  Seriously?  Yeah. If ever there was a catchy headline, this was it.  I just had to read it.  And when I had read it, I just had to share.  It’s that good.

“Since last year, when the economy left drivers with fewer hauls, Mr. White, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound ex-Air Force mechanic with a bushy mustache, has hunkered down inside his truck in his many off hours, making quilts from patterns with names like “Meet Me In Paris.” When he’s not sewing, he’s daydreaming about it, he said as he ran a square of yellow cotton with little violets through his machine. “Oh, there’s many a time you’re just going down the road at O-dark-thirty in the morning and you just start thinking about a particular pattern.” [from WSL article]

His wife is a quilter and suggested he try it to pass the time, so they bought a $179 sewing machine which he sets up next to his mini fridge in the cab of his truck.  Since August he has made 7 quilt tops.  Seven!  From the cab of his truck.  Amazing!

Kevin Abraham-Banks, a Sioux Falls, S.D., trucker, likes to knit while passing the time on the road. Here he makes a sweater for his wife.

[ photo from the Wall Street Journal online ]

This guy Kevin “learned to knit last year after load-volumes slowed. Creating something tangible beats sitting around the truck stop “talking about who has a bigger radio,” he said. He’s finished a scarf and socks, and is working on a sweater for his wife.  “The fact that you can take strands of thread and basically make something out of it, that’s awesome I think,” he said. “It’s pretty cool stuff, man.” [quoted from WSL article]

He is a big tough trucker guy with a shaved head and  dragon tattoos and he knits in his spare time.  I am pretty sure his next tattoo is going to look something like this.  Don’t you think that would go great with the dragons?

[ image ]

I am totally amazed.  Number one, that a big touch trucker guy is knitting.  Number two that he is knitting a sweater for his wife.  Number three that other big tough trucker guy has a Sewing machine in his truck and has made seven quilt tops in 8 months.  If he can do that, surely I can finish up a few of my projects that are lying around the house.  Right? Right.  Now, I’m off to do something productive.

Go read the article here.