82-Lancasler Farming, Saturday, June 22, 1991
GAY N. BROWNLEE
Somerset Co. Correspondent
SOMERSET (Somerset Co.)
“We were so happy we couldn’t
sleep,” recalled Shanta Moitra
when describing her own and the
feelings of her best friend, Jodi
Berkebile, after they learned their
knitting designs were chosen as
number one in the nation. Shanta
had designed and hand-knitted the
winning men’s sweater, while
Jodi had done the same to win the
women’s best designed sweater.
For Shanta, it was her second suc
cessive national title. It was the
first for Jodi.
Putting the frosting on the cake,
to use a cliche’, was the triple hon
or Shanta received when her swe
ater also took the People’s Choice
and Best of Show awards, at the
St. Louis National Design Com
petition held in March by the Knit
ting Guild of America.
“We were roommates,” says
Shanta. “We finally turned on
CNN to get to sleep,” she said,
bringing forth a chorus of sponta
neous laughter from the others sit
ting with her. (Jodi, sitting nearby
comfirmed that the Cable News
Network subject matter was dull
enough to help them get drowsy.)
Jodi’s winning design was a
beautiful, artistically designed,
mohair creation with raised pink
flowers. Muted blues and greens
were used for the background and
the leaves and stems of the
flowers.
Shanta’s sweater is now being
modeled and professionally
photographed for publication in
Cast-On, the national knitting
magazine. The sweater is a
geometric masterpiece that com
bines all manner of shapes, dia
monds, zigzags, and circles, done
in a strong black and white color
scheme.
Both winners learned to knit at a
young age. Shanta was about six
when her mother taught her to knit
“It was a matter of survival,” she
said since she grew up near the
Himalayan Mountains where
woolen stockings, gloves, sweaters
and shawls were needed for protec
tion from the cold weather.
Jodi learned to knit when her
mother taught a Girl Scout troop
the craft “I wasn’t really interested
ice
and Best of Show awards at the St. Louis National Design
Competition sponsored by the Knitting Guild of America.
Somerset Friends Named Top Knitting
and I didn’t do anything with knit
ting until four years ago when a
friend wanted to leam to knit,” she
said. Eventually, Jodi joined the
knitting guild and has been knitting
ever since.
According to the competition
rules, designers can have another
person do the knitting. These gals
prefer to do their own knitting.
Good technical and mathematical
skills are required to correctly fig
ure the amounts and types of
stitches needed to construct a
professional-looking garment.
Jodi questions why a person
would go to all the trouble to
design a sweater, yet lack the abil
ity to knit it.
“I don’t see how you could
design something and not feel able
to knit it yourself.” she says.
Both women are obviously
meticulous about their craftsman
ship. “If you arc going to put your
time into it,” says Jodi, “You want
it to last.”
Adds Shanta, “If a knitter
doesn’t know good finishing tech
niques, the sweater will look
homemade. We want our sweaters
to look ‘handmade,’ not
‘homemade.’”
The women use only natural
fiber yams, shunning the synthe
tics, saying that the natural fibers
will last a lifetime. Much of what
they use is imported.
Another qualification for enter
ing the national competition is
membership in a knitting guild.
Shanta and Jodi belong to two
guilds. One is the Laurel High
lands Knitting Guild in Ligomer.
The other is the Roof Garden
Knitting Guild in Somerset, of
which Jodi is the president. The
downside of this honor, she says,
is that while she is conducting the
meeting, all the other members sit
around kitting. Her own fingers
just itch to grab needle and yam
and get to work. These gals
declare that, once begun, knitting
is addictive and you won’t want to
quit.
Where a knitter finds inspira
tion for a new design? Jodi says it
can pop up anywhere. It might
come from seeing an unfamiliar
stitch or design which can give
birth to a new idea.
Three years ago the pair met at
Designers In Nation
the other, each recognized a
kindred spirit. Both are homemak
ers, but out of their shared love of
knitting has blossomed a close
bond of friendship.
A native of India, Shanta is the
perfect foil for her fairer
complexioned friend, Jodi. At the
ceremonial awards night in St.
Louis, Shanta put aside western
dress in favor of wearing her
native Indian sari of vivid green.
“If you join a guild,” says Shan
ta, “you already know knitting.”
However, both women say that the
more they know, the more they
realize they don’t know about
knitting.
The sweater designing skills of
both women are being sought by
prestigious magazine publishers
who search for new talent.
Shanta says her filial duties
would conflict with becoming a
professional designer. The mother
of teenagers — son, Vivek, 16, and
daughter Alika, 14 - Shanta said
that she may consider going pro
fessional when the extra
curricular activities of her children
have abated. Because her hus
band, Dr. Shomendra Moitra, is
the director of Emergency Ser
vices at the local hospital, he is
extremely busy; therefore, he is
unable to accompany the children
as often as he would enjoy going
with them. Shanta feels a strong
parental commitment to support
them by attending their activities.
She is also a registered nurse.
Jodi, on the other hand, has
already had three of her original
sweater designs accepted by
McCall’s magazine. They will
appear in the needlework and
crafts issue coming out later this
year. She says, “If somebody pays
me for my hobby that’s great!”
A college romance brought
about Jodi’s marriage to Guy
Berkebile. Their two children are
Garrett, 6, and Lindsay, 3. Guy
and his mother operate the Berke
bile Oil Co. in Somerset.
When Jodi earned her college
degree in finance, she little
dreamed her bent for numbers
would be most used to figure
inches and stitches for sweater
designs.
Serving her guests with an
unpretentious grace, Shanta shares
a bit about her country. She says
the northerners and southerners of
India each speak a separate lan
guage. Her husband comes from
the south and she comes from the
north. He can speak both lan
guages, but his family and Shanta
cannot. Since the second language
in India is English, which is taught
in the schools, Shanta and her hus
band’s family must converse in
English. She says this is a prob
lem. She would like for all the
people in her country to share the
same Indian tongue and be fully
able to communicate with one
another.
:ing. In
Excitement is already mounting
for the women since the 1993 knit
ting convention will be held in
Pittsburgh at the Vista Hotel. Next
year’s convention is set for Sac
ramento which is a discouraging
3,000 miles away. Yet, there’s a
bright spot about the Sacramento
affair. A member of the local
guild, Marie Kieffer, from the
Somerset County Extension Ser
vice will teach a class there. For
Shanta and Jodi, this is nearly as
good as if the honor belonged to
one of them.
Another guild member, Peggy
Black, will teach buttonhole and
button band construction at an
Jodi, shown in the Moitra llvlngroom, Is seated with her
knitting supplies.
Dark-haired Shanta holds her last year’s national men’s
design winning sweater. Jodi is holding her sweater which
won this year’s best women’s design.
August seminar in Philadelphia. unused yam. Although Shanta and
To make knitted garments last, Jodi say that they know better,
take proper care of them say the they confess to the knitter s sin of
women. “Never hang them.” The buying more yam than they need
garment should be carefully having to store it. It can easily
folded and stored in a cedar chest happen when they shop at Kathy s
or a box. Hand laundering should Kreations in Ligonier and spy a
be done at lease once a year. Give new imported yam or perhaps an
the same gentle care to storing the irresistible new color.
“This Is only some of it,” says Shanta, somewhat guiltily,
as she pulls out stored yarn which she bought on impulse
knowing It Is best to buy only what you need for the job.
homestead