Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
Woman lends knitting talents
Plymouth woman lends knitting talents to Project Linus
PLYMOUTH >> Knitting can be therapeutic, meditative and self-satisfying. A 2016 film called “Yarn” made it clear that knitting’s basic tools can also produce stunning, one-of-a-kind visual art.
None of this surprises Plymouth Meeting’s Mary Luthy, whose grandmother, Ruth Coons, taught her how to knit when she was five. These days…well, Luthy has come a long way since she used her new skill to make doll blankets. Particularly noteworthy, observes a current entry on Conshohocken-based Knit Knights’ website, she single-handedly turns out an afghan a week for teens who receive blankets as part of the non-profit Project Linus (www.projectlinus.org).
The latter is headquartered in Belton, Missouri. It was founded some 26 years ago and describes its core mission as “(Providing) love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer ‘blanketeers.’” Craftsmen like Luthy. “I have about 15 blankets finished and ready to go,” she says. “But with the pandemic, everything is on hold. Project Linus is a wonderful organization. They need the blankets, and that’s just another one of the many negatives that’s happened during the past year when everything kind of came to a stop.”
All told, Luthy belongs to a trio of local knitting groups, but her needles and yarn go everywhere. Knitting in the dark at the movies… or while she waits for her entree to arrive tableside in a restaurant? No big deal. Why not use the time to do something “constructive,” she reasons.
The local woman spent a number of years knitting sweaters for a company called Pattern craft in Norristown. Her piece work ultimately became order samples for designers, stores and magazine ad departments, and Luthy would eventually spot them as illustrations in various national magazines. When Pattern craft closed, she went to work for Narberth designer Martha Lamberson, doing much the same thing. As Luthy once put it, she was knitting 10 to 12 hours a day: “I’d bring stuff home and then sit in my living room and knit like hell.”
These days, she plies her craft “just for fun.” That “fun” has translated to a mountain of one-of-a-kind clothing, toys and holiday trinkets for her three children and half-dozen grand and great-grandchildren over the past several decades. But numerous strangers have also benefited from Luthy’s creative talents via the countless handmade items she and fellow knitting group members routinely donate to charities and non-profit agencies
like Project Linus – everything from skull caps for use under military helmets to baby clothes, mittens and scarves.
Luthy sees nothing unusual or praiseworthy in her generosity.
“I just love knitting, so if I can do something I love that helps somebody who needs it, that’s a win-win,” she says.
Luthy has lived in this area for nearly sixty years, a long way from St. Paul, Minnesota, where she grew up. After graduating from Summit School for Girls, she went on to Centenary College in Hackettstown, New Jersey, and the University of Minnesota. She planned to become an elementary teacher until she met future husband Art, an Army officer, in New Jersey. Postings at military bases in Tacoma, Washington, and Junction City, Kansas, were followed by an extended cross-country road trip and a year in Minnesota before the couple came East on a job move for Art, an engineer.
In the years since, the Luthy name has become wellestablished on the Plymouth volunteer scene. Oldest son Charlie is an assistant chief at Plymouth Fire Company.
Although Luthy no longer knits for a paycheck, nothing else has changed when it comes to her craft. She frequently has a halfdozen items in the works, dozens of completed projects at the ready and figures she’s logged “millions and millions of stitches” since her grandmother’s tutorials.
“I’m knitting pretty much all the time,” she laughs. “At this point, it’s just second nature.”