Trendsurfing: Public knit-ins (The Times)
By David Rowan
It's Saturday morning at the Ritzy cinema, Brixton, and as the opening credits roll for the new Bridget Jones film, around 30 pairs of knitting needles in the audience busily purl, slip, tink and tog. For a while now, knitting has been officially "cool" - which probably explains why the cinema's management has helpfully agreed to keep the lights on for this morning's mass knit-in. But Pauline Wall, chatting to friends as she starts to plan a lace scarf, has little time for the hobby's celebrity faddishness. The 32-year-old equities researcher is here on a mission: to reclaim public spaces for today's hard-core amateur knitters.
"I hate all this 'knitting is the new yoga' bullshit, with celebrities wheeled out for publicity stunts," says Wall, originally from Sydney. "In a year or two, three-quarters of the people knitting now will have stopped." Instead, she sees public knitting sessions serving a higher purpose - offering women in particular new opportunities to network socially. "You might remember knitting circles from your mother's era," she explains. "Well, this is a modern take. Where it was once a quiet housewifey thing to do at home, now that we have jobs it's a reason to sit around together having a chat. A lot of my girlfriends are third-wave feminists. What used to be a dirty word we're now embracing because we can."
They are known as "stitch 'n' bitch" sessions, and in the past few months the number of public knit-ins has grown sharply across Britain. Wall organised this morning's gathering through her Knit Chicks network (and almost all today's participants are women in their twenties and thirties), but there are equally active groups from Aberdeen to Cambridge. Mostly they meet in pubs or cafes, but the more subversive groups, such as Cast Off in London, have knitted on Circle Line tube trains and in the Savoy's American Bar. Pauline Wall's group was last week due to invade the Foyles bookshop cafe. "I've emailed them to ask," she says, "but as they haven't got back I take it as tacit approval."
The knitters' arrival is not always welcomed. The Savoy ejected Cast Off, and Brighton's Threadbare knitters were told they were creating the wrong image for the Cricketers pub. "But then we were approached by the landlord of the Hobgoblin, which is quite a goth pub," recalls Penny Nicholas, 31, a founder member of the Threadbare. "Now there's all these black-clad body-pierced students welcoming us as fellow eccentrics." A local museum even exhibited a collection of the group's knitted breasts. "If people on trains asked what you were making, you'd say it was a baby's hat," Nicholas explains.
Sussex is currently a particular haven for public knitters: the Brighton group talks to the Hastings Extreme Knitters, who photograph each other skydiving while cross-stitching, and some lady knitters from Lewes have modelled naked for a charity calendar. "Knitting's always been there, it's just becoming more public," explains Nicholas, a hospital PA. "This is a way of saying, 'I knit and I'm not ashamed'."
But does anything more profound explain the boom in these public gatherings? "You've really got me," says Pauline Wall after a think."There are all these theories going around that it's post-September 11, people getting back to the wholesome activities that their grandparents knew." Is that her view? "No," she says. "It's just a wonderful networking opportunity that gets you out of the house. And unlike trainspotting, with our hobby you get to keep warm in winter."
(The Times, London, December 11 2004)
It's Saturday morning at the Ritzy cinema, Brixton, and as the opening credits roll for the new Bridget Jones film, around 30 pairs of knitting needles in the audience busily purl, slip, tink and tog. For a while now, knitting has been officially "cool" - which probably explains why the cinema's management has helpfully agreed to keep the lights on for this morning's mass knit-in. But Pauline Wall, chatting to friends as she starts to plan a lace scarf, has little time for the hobby's celebrity faddishness. The 32-year-old equities researcher is here on a mission: to reclaim public spaces for today's hard-core amateur knitters.
"I hate all this 'knitting is the new yoga' bullshit, with celebrities wheeled out for publicity stunts," says Wall, originally from Sydney. "In a year or two, three-quarters of the people knitting now will have stopped." Instead, she sees public knitting sessions serving a higher purpose - offering women in particular new opportunities to network socially. "You might remember knitting circles from your mother's era," she explains. "Well, this is a modern take. Where it was once a quiet housewifey thing to do at home, now that we have jobs it's a reason to sit around together having a chat. A lot of my girlfriends are third-wave feminists. What used to be a dirty word we're now embracing because we can."
They are known as "stitch 'n' bitch" sessions, and in the past few months the number of public knit-ins has grown sharply across Britain. Wall organised this morning's gathering through her Knit Chicks network (and almost all today's participants are women in their twenties and thirties), but there are equally active groups from Aberdeen to Cambridge. Mostly they meet in pubs or cafes, but the more subversive groups, such as Cast Off in London, have knitted on Circle Line tube trains and in the Savoy's American Bar. Pauline Wall's group was last week due to invade the Foyles bookshop cafe. "I've emailed them to ask," she says, "but as they haven't got back I take it as tacit approval."
The knitters' arrival is not always welcomed. The Savoy ejected Cast Off, and Brighton's Threadbare knitters were told they were creating the wrong image for the Cricketers pub. "But then we were approached by the landlord of the Hobgoblin, which is quite a goth pub," recalls Penny Nicholas, 31, a founder member of the Threadbare. "Now there's all these black-clad body-pierced students welcoming us as fellow eccentrics." A local museum even exhibited a collection of the group's knitted breasts. "If people on trains asked what you were making, you'd say it was a baby's hat," Nicholas explains.
Sussex is currently a particular haven for public knitters: the Brighton group talks to the Hastings Extreme Knitters, who photograph each other skydiving while cross-stitching, and some lady knitters from Lewes have modelled naked for a charity calendar. "Knitting's always been there, it's just becoming more public," explains Nicholas, a hospital PA. "This is a way of saying, 'I knit and I'm not ashamed'."
But does anything more profound explain the boom in these public gatherings? "You've really got me," says Pauline Wall after a think."There are all these theories going around that it's post-September 11, people getting back to the wholesome activities that their grandparents knew." Is that her view? "No," she says. "It's just a wonderful networking opportunity that gets you out of the house. And unlike trainspotting, with our hobby you get to keep warm in winter."
(The Times, London, December 11 2004)
posted by David Rowan at Saturday, December 11, 2004
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