Why we stitch

an ode to those who crafted before me / knitting is always political

I believe our craft holds meaning in more ways than we can conceive. When I look at my own knitting history, I see lineage. My mother taught me how to knit. I was ten years old, I wanted leg warmers for my ballet class. My mother gave me a pair of knitting needles, we chose a few yarns from a local yarn shop and she showed me how to make a pair of leg warmers. Thinking about why she taught me how to make my own instead of going out to buy a pair, I come to a few reasons: My mother grew up penniless. If she needed something, let alone wanted something, she had to get creative. Things weren’t simply available, they had to be imagined first. My mother is also a long time feminist. Growing up in post war Germany as an only girl within a family of five children, with a mother who upheld the entire family system, the political movements of the sixties and seventies… she wanted to make sure I, a girl, learned how to take agency. Even if it was just a pair of leg warmers. She could buy them for me or she could teach me how to create them. It was a small act of independence. My mother also deeply cared for non conformity. She wore turquoise pants with a spiderweb pattern, her waist long hair dyed bright red with henna, brightly colored hand knit sweaters and flea market coats. In the eighties she turned to red stiletto heels and one large earring. We got our clothes from kilo shops and community swaps. Everything my mother did was a political statement. Her work not meant to make money but to make things better. Her style a statement against the establishment. Her long red hair a literal reference to the women burned at the stakes. The food we ate, the clothes we wore, the places we lived, the people we knew, the books she read… she resisted and refused. Even in her knitting, she refused to use patterns or follow fashion. She fought at every corner, her anger and pain sometimes boldly expressed, often eating her up inside. Knitting meant a pause and a way to resist. It was passed down to me as an act of independence, a tool for expression and a possibility for steadiness even if the world or oneself is falling apart.

Looking further back, I see my maternal grandmother. It was she who taught my mother how to knit. My grandmother had no time on her hands. Knitting, sewing, mending was a necessity. It was part of survival in a violent system. She was forced to leave everything behind. Twice. Only to end up providing, caring and holding her family together by herself. With minimal allowance, working several cleaning jobs. Crafting was not a joy, it was survival. She too, like my mother, taught her daughter how to knit as an act of independence. But not the kind of liberating independence, more a means to self sufficiency when necessary. My grandmother needed self sufficiency in order to survive as a woman.

Now here I am, wondering why I knit. Knitting was given to me as an act of independence and free expression. A way of non conformity. When I think of the women that passed knitting on to me, I see generations of women. My maternal lineage is one of many. Spinning, weaving, knitting… it has always been part of our stories. Stories, narratives, tales, myths. We never just knit. The sheer movement of our hands is embedded in a long lineage of human stories. I can never just make a sweater without sensing how this knowledge has arrived within my very own hands. In us knowing how to knit lie stories of beauty, cruelty, wonder, violence, resistance, oppression, awe, fear, joy, strength, life and death and everything in-between. I only know a fraction of those stories. But knowing that I am part of them makes me want to honor every aspect of my craft. From the fibers than run though my fingers to the pieces I make. The fact that I can knit is thanks to all those stories lived before me. So yes, I am deeply passionate about knitting. I am passionate about what generations before me created. I am passionate about the web that connects us all.

Knitting (and any other fiber craft) always exists within context. It always has meaning and is always political. The fact that I can knit in peace in a warm house with the yarns of my choosing is political. The fact that my grandmother knit for her five children under the oppression of her own husband was political. The fact that my mother chose to teach me how to create my own leg warmers instead of buying them was political. To investigate the origins of the fibers I use is political. To tap into creativity instead of consumerism is political. To learn about the origins of patterns is political. To use craft as a form of expression is political. To know who gets to ‘just knit’ and who doesn’t is political. To acknowledge that some people get silenced for their craft and others get celebrated is political. To knit in community is political. To know who makes money off of craft and who doesn’t is political. To see who profits and who doesn’t is political. To know and honor the stories embedded within our craft is political. To use our craft is political. To craft is political.

So why do I knit? Because I feel the tug of that web. I feel those stories. I feel my grandmother within me. I get inspired by my mothers quiet daily revolutions. I believe in connections beyond my own knowledge.

Knitting is the very act of making connections, one stitch to the next. I believe we need each other. We need the stories than run through us in order to build new stories. Crafting and creating has always been a part of our human story. I believe it is part of the narrative we’re writing. Knitting for me is one way to add to the narrative.