How Knitting Clubs Became the Least Suspecting Place for Political Change

Over the years, Powers has watched members of the group become more politically savvy, more engaged in their communities, and gain an understanding of the local government. And in a city with a struggling local news landscape, Knitty Council is a steady presence at council meetings, something Powers hopes is a reminder to her elected officials that she and other citizens are engaged.

“My idea was two-fold — it wasn't just to get people together to knit, it was for us to show up together in person to city council meetings with our knitting and crocheting and be watchful eyes on the city council,” Powers says. “I was looking to engender [a feeling of] ] ‘they’re watching us.’”

According to Kristan, Powers’s venture is rooted in one of the historical purposes of knitting, as a social tool.

“Knitting has usually been seen as a very social activity. Those traditions of knitting, like aran sweaters and Fair Isle, were taught by looking at each other’s projects. They weren’t written down. You wouldn’t have this tradition if it weren't for the social aspect,” she says. Part of the reason crafts like knitting work so well as a political tool, Kristan says, is because in our modern stereotyping. Many think of these social groups as being comprised of older women — a group often expected to be quiet and sweet, not revolutionary.

“It’s the current-day stereotyping … asking why cant you just be a nice grandma if you're going to be knitting,” she says. “You should be behaving in a feminine coded way.”

This idea, Greer says, discounts the extreme skill that older knitters have cultivated, and the multigenerational relationships that knitters can forge through the craft. But it’s also not historically accurate. Knitting, for a long time, was gendered male, or not gendered at all.

While Grant’s group focuses on sewing, they say challenging gender stereotypes is an inherent part of their stitch and bitch.

“I am a transgender man. Much of my sewing experience comes from various ‘girl’ classes … [and the] general expectation that women will sew and do crafts and be homemakers,” Grant says. “I’ve seen a rise in male sewists. In a world where there are things deemed feminine and masculine, there’s value in reclaiming those things. [Sewing] isn’t a thing that’s inherently isolated to women.”

Beyond that, Grant says that being able to tailor their clothes and make them last long also becomes inherently political because of their gender identity. Finding clothing can be tough for some trans people because of the gender divide in how items are marketed. Being able to tailor a button-down that is too tight in the chest, then, becomes crucial.

Grant stresses that you don’t have to be an expert sewist or crafter to start mending your clothes or to join a stitch and bitch. In fact, making mistakes is an act of solidarity.

“Making mistakes or not having things look perfect is normal, reasonable, and something we do not need to feel ashamed of. Being an out queer person drives that home as much as wearing clothes that I've repaired myself and repaired by hand,” Grant says. “Sewing is an act of resistance, as is being openly queer, happily fat, happily disabled. All of that is important.”