Ever since I started studying crafty stuff (history, trends, activists involvement, etc), many of you have asked to read my final dissertation. Below is the so-called ‘zine version’ of my dissertation, which I wrote in September, it’s pretty stripped down, but was the original ethnographic base for a much longer piece. As many of you know, I’ve been having crafty issues lately and trying to study this sort of stuff more but having a hard time finding funding/programmes. So for now, I’ve decided to update this site on Mondays with longer pieces about The State of the Craft’ and on Thursdays with shorter bits that are activist/political related. I know this is really long, but…

We all have our channels/waves of resistance. It’s just that some of us are more aware of them than others. It came from altruism/It started out as altruistic.

My interest in knitting came out of wanting to volunteer at nursing homes. I figured that somewhere in New York City there would be one little old lady that could use the company to ease the boredom, tedium and would get a kick out of showing me how to do a dying craft. Maybe it was all the stereotypes getting to me of the old woman in the rocking chair clicking away with her needles, but I was curious. No one I knew knit, so I figured I would try and go straight to the source: old people.

Waiting for a staff meeting to begin at the publishing house, I asked my co-workers if they knew of any nursing homes in the area (as I was still relatively new to NYC) where I could volunteer my time and in the process learn to knit. Out of eleven co-workers (10 female, 1 male, all under 40), 9 responded, “I knit.” They all kind of eyed each other for a minute as if they were thinking, “You, too?” One of the non-knitters said she had a friend in a knitting circle and that I could learn at one of their fortnightly meetings.

The next week, I headed to the Lower East Side with a curious friend complete with size 9 bamboo needles and 4 skeins of kelly green yarn from my friend procured for me because at the point of agreeing to learn I suddenly feared yarn shops. Irrational, but true.

As we entered the apartment, I was gobsmacked. It was like a secret society, women ranging from their teens to their 80s, speaking a variety of languages were in little circles scattered throughout the flat, some busy knitting while either learning or chatting while others were gossiping over a glass of wine of nibbling away at the vast array of hors d’ouevres everyone had brought individually.

I don’t remember much from that evening as I spent most of it whispering swear words under my breath as I tried not to drop either the needles or the yarn- trying to will my fingers to grasp a concept they seemed to fight with every motion. But I do remember overhearing one woman tearfully tell another about her marriage that was falling apart. From their conversation it was obvious that the listener had been hearing bi-weekly installments of the story via the knitting circle. It amazed me how once people started knitting, their conversation deepened.

I only went back to the knitting circle one other time as I was ashamed of my misshapen thing masquerading as a scarf complete with myriad holes and dropped stitches. I continued to knit until I had acquired a horrendous looking scarf over the course of the next few months. All of the election 2000 furore was still continuing. TV was boring. I was crap at the NY Times crossword. It just seemed like a more productive activity way to watch TV while listening to the continuing debate over what constituted as a “pregnant chad.”

I moved back to North Carolina and had no TV, but I did have a computer. I was bored, so in an effort not to become boring went online and looked for various online publications to send some work to. As you do- I ended up on a girl’s personal site about her life and her personal efforts which included rehoming abandoned rabbits. On the links page, I clicked around a bit until I came across a site called Getcrafty. All these creative ideas that mixed art and punk and craft. I was overblown. I started making marble magnets. I made them all winter. I would go to friends houses and leave one or two behind on their fridge. I found a photo of a friend in a magazine and made a magnet of her head. I was marble magnet mad.

My search for ways to make better marble magnets took me to the local craft shop. There was a whole wall of acrylic yarn at the back. I remembered the kelly green yarn nightmare (still not completed) stashed in the closet, but faced with a whole new world of colour before me, bought some yarn. There was only so far I could go with the marble magnets, and I felt I had reached my peak performance.

After 9/11, my brother arrived at my house with an old TV my mother insisted I have, lest anymore national disasters struck. She considered NPR a lesser news source than CBS, and I was secretly happy that as well as being informed of our nation’s security efforts, I could also watch “Oprah.” With the TV, I began to knit more. All useless and full of holes and acrylic, but I was knitting.

And still continued to check Getcrafty, where again, like in NYC, I was amazed at how all these women were talking about personal issues, struggles and joys on a site about craft. Didn’t these people have friends IRL?

As I hadn’t knitted in awhile, I needed some technical help. None of my friends knew how and my grandmother was into needlepoint now, so I was screwed. Until I asked for help online. As they say, “ask and ye shall receive.” The response was unparalleled- along with various online links for more information, and words upon words of inspiration.

I continued plodding along until one day, someone from my area posted, who also knit, and suggested we meet up. We finally got together and continued to meet at a local coffeeshop. We got flashed by a creepy guy while knitting and were told too many stories than I can count that started with “my mom/grandmom/aunt/insert random elderly female relative here used to knit” by older men. But mostly, we got weird looks.

I was beginning to pine for the group in NYC. The one that I only met with twice.
So I sent out an email to my friends. We had all been crafting in secret. I tried to install a monthly craft night but there was much protest and we made it weekly. On Tuesdays, because there was a rival group that met on Wednesdays. We ruled. We drank beer instead of tea and listened to cooler music.

So at this point, I knitted, met with friends each week, got new ideas on crafts online and read crafty magazines like Bust and ReadyMade. I kept hearing about a group of knitters who called themselves Cast Off in London. As I was recently accepted to graduate school in London, I was determined to find them.

So I moved to London. And called about lots of places to live- I only went to see one. Imagine my surprise when I got there and the owner of the house was one of the founders of Cast Off. We talked about crafts and how I once had coffee with Ian MacKaye and even rode in his car. We hit it off. I moved in.

Eventually my flatmate organized an event at the V+A. The press went crazy. Because my flatmate is only one person, I agreed to do some of the press. I did a TV thing for Sky News at the Museum of Natural History- knitting under a dinosaur. I made a dork out of myself attempting to come up with a “knitting is like a dog” analogy. I was also on the radio, live, which freaked me out. I still think I’m the only person ever to talk about “punk rock” and “knitting” on either BBC Shropshire or BBC Berkshire. I’m sure I rocked about five peoples world, as those radio stations are tiny. But, still, yahoo.

My friends started introducing me as “the knitter” to everyone. Was embarrassing, except when a boy I thought was cute told me I was “rock” for knitting. I like rock. I went to Paris and had a hard time trying to teach French people to knit at Palais de Tokyo. I knit a boy (a different one) a hat. He turned into a “jerk” so that’s what I embroidered on the hat in big red letters. Craft rocks because you can do whatever the hell you want with it. Like take out your frustrations, anger, etc. I ended up unravelling “JERK” and giving the hat to my best friend because it gets cold in Philadelphia and the hat ruled, even though that boy didn’t.

In August 2004, I go to a wedding in Wisconsin. I eat cheese and meet with my uncle’s “knitting friend.” We talk about knitting. Suddenly all the women in my family (most of whom don’t knit) were listening. Am amazed they were all silent for so long. And amazed at their interest and their age range and that we were all talking about something other than the weather or food. The whole time in Wisconsin, my Aunt Gene talks to me about knitting. Before this trip I have never really talked to Aunt Gene. We talk more in 72 hours that we have in 29 years. Am stoked.

And here I am surrounded by so much history and hope for the future, trying to carve out my own niche where I can teach, write, learn and research about all of this. Because it does branch out into the ‘outside world,’ because in the end it’s about something of necessity that turned into something of passion over time. Some days it feels super academic (well, when I use ‘academically sanctioned’ words), and other days just like a pipedream. At any rate, I’m up for seeing where this takes me nonetheless.

It’s all so nerdily exciting to me because, all of this IS revolution and following the evolution of a craft. Communicating, sharing, learning, growing, talking, loving, caring, creating. Revolution is about more than just fighting against, it’s about change and passion, too. And evolution is about more than making new strides and taking on new challenges, it’s about honouring the past and becoming familiar with the long and winding path that led to the present.

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