When I was seven years old I joined the Girl Scouts– Mostly because the Boy Scouts weren’t woke enough to allow girls in yet. It was there, surrounded by girls and older women, that I learned to knit and crochet. I fell in love with crafting, and spent the next decade with yarn in my hands. When people envision an avid knitter, they usually don’t picture a queer, punk-adjacent college kid. When I tell people I knit, they see it as quaint. A grandma hobby. But I don’t think that’s right. In fact, I’d argue that fiber arts are radical in the modern world. They’re slow, communal, creative, and defiantly off-trend in a world that monetizes every moment of your existence.
Basically, my knitting is punk as fuck.
During the pandemic, fiber crafts gained popularity while people were stuck at home. Isolated and anxious, people needed something to do with their hands. Many people learned alone, from YouTube tutorials and TikTok creators.
Historically, though , knitting was not a solo tradition. You didn’t learn from a screen, but from the women in your life. Your grandmother helped you cast on your first project. Your neighbor taught you a tricky stitch. If all else failed, you could have asked a librarian if they had a book that might teach you, hoping its diagrams were comprehensible. No matter what, other people were involved.
Still, it is never just about the yarn. Stitch-and-bitch groups become a safe space for women to build community. While the rest of the world may ignore women’s issues, they can lean on each other through their shared hobbies. These craft groups are loosely structured, often just a weekly meeting at a library or someone’s house. While every crafter works on a separate project, more advanced hobbyists help others learn new skills and difficult techniques. All the while, women socialize and gossip, away from the misogynistic society that works to devalue their craft.
Sure, you can say knitting isn’t that deep. It is literally string. But to me, there is politics behind the intention I put into a garment. A mass-produced t-shirt is not designed to “fit” anybody. It’s barely designed at all. It is a few rectangles made to drape well on most people which are then cut, sewn, and sold to a million buyers. A knit sweater, however, is made with purpose at every step. There is intention behind the thickness and fiber type of the yarn, the specific techniques used, and the shaping of the piece. Every handmade sweater is a labor of love, tailored specifically to the knitter’s preferences.
To this day, fiber arts are often looked down upon as “grandma hobbies” – a connotation that I find not only dismissive, but also insulting to grandmas. The most beautiful, impressive, and lovely garments I’ve ever seen were created by grandmothers, whose labor is just as – if not more – valuable than mine. A hand-knit sweater is anything but trivial. It can take hours of work for the garment to grow even a few inches. This labor is highly skilled and detail-oriented. Devaluing yarn crafts specifically because they are associated with older women is flat-out misogyny.
Most knitters don’t even bother with selling their goods. They sell patterns, because the weeks of labor and hundreds of dollars it costs to produce a handmade wool garment isn’t profitable in a world of $3 polyester shirts. Still, most pattern designers keep prices low or make them free, prioritizing accessibility in the craft. Thousands of free tutorials online have helped novice crafters hone their skills, and often, those invaluable tutorials are made by the very grandmothers that we demean. When choosing yarn, some people will only use natural plant materials, due to environmental concerns with synthetic fiber. Some particularly intense fiber artists will raise sheep, shear the wool, and spin their own yarn for their next sweater. Crafters are intimately connected with the process and product of their labor. On the other hand, the garments and machine-knit goods we find in stores are detached from their origin. The consumers don’t know who made it, or where– Just that it’s being sold on SHEIN for $9.99.
Fiber artists share their skills and knowledge freely, but this is not how capitalism wants us to behave. Pooling information, moving slowly, and creating goods with intention? That’s rebellious.
The time consuming and rhythmic motions involved in fiber arts lend themselves easily to rumination and mediation. Some people see knitting as a sort of prayer, filling sweaters and scarves with good intentions in every stitch. In this act of creation, a knitter resists consumer culture that tells them the product will create joy. Instead, joy is found in the moment, as the yarn slides off the needles. When I knit, I’m not making something to sell. I’m reclaiming my own time. The capitalist world we live in is designed to be loud, fast-paced, and to keep us from interrogating our beliefs and opinions. Slowing down and creating something with no intention of profit is an act of defiance.
Now, crafting stands at a crossroads. We must balance the rich traditions of the community with the newfound accessibility of crafting. It’s easy to dismiss our elders as outdated, even bigoted. But they are knowledgeable. Not just of yarn, but of community, resistance, and how to stitch solidarity into our crafts. This isn’t only about knitting. In a deeply divided modern world, our elders’ knowledge is a tool towards building a better future. Find a community for your craft, whatever that may be. Talk to your elders, friends, and neighbors. While the grandmas at the knitting circle can be intimidating, I promise – they don’t bite. Pick up some yarn, find a few friends, and –
Stitch it to the man.
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