THEITCHTO STITCH
ONCE ASSOCIATED WITH GRANNIES AND HIPPIES, KNITTING HAS BECOME AN ADDICTIVE PASTIME FOR A NEW GENERATION
nitting was once the preserve of grannies and hippies, with a sedate, fusty image that was far from fashionable. That has all changed dramatically as there has been a resurgence in hand-knitting as part of the revival in crafting. Celebrities like Winona Ryder, Cameron Diaz, Dakota Fanning, Michelle Obama, Meryl Streep and Cara Delevingne are all proud knitters. Julia Roberts even brought her needles and yarn on to the red carpet. The men are at it too: Tom Daley, Paul Rudd, Ewan McGregor, Russell Crowe and rocker Ronnie Wood have all confessed to being knitters. Indeed, if former party animal Kate Moss is knitting, you know it is seriously cool.
The stars of The Banshees of Inisherin film were not the actors – despite their fine performances – but the hand-knits, which garnered a cult following globally. The movie’s sweaters, skilfully reimagined from old photos by knitter Delia Barry,
83, prompted a spike in sales of traditional knits and Arans, with young people scouting for original versions in charity shops.
Barry, who has been knitting for 70 years, recreated the knits from vintage photos with intricate moss, diamond and purl stitches. Actor Brendan Gleeson was so enamoured with his that he commissioned her to make one to keep post-production.
Today, young Irish designers like Pearl Reddington, Miss She’s Got Knits and Colin Burke have made hand-knitting covetable by using it in creative knits that are fresh and contemporary, while also using traditional knit and crochet techniques. People keen to emulate the look are taking up needles and knitting, many for the first time.
The pandemic made knitting hugely popular and has escalated it into a widespread passion. Look around you on public transport, in cafés and parks, and avid knitters are counting stitches and casting on. When everyone was locked down and confined, people looked for anything to keep their hands busy, and knitting proved to be the perfect antidote to keep stress levels low and boredom at bay. Once hooked on the art of plain, purl, plain, they just kept on knitting.
Lisa Sisk of This Is Knit, a yarn shop in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre in Dublin has seen the explosion of interest in knitting since she started her yarn business in
2006 on a market stall. ‘We’ve seen a great number of students particularly coming into the shop but we see people of all ages, men and women, local people and tourists,’ she says. ‘We have just a great cross-section of all types of people coming into us now, it’s lovely to see.
‘A good number of men took it up during Covid, when their wife might have been doing it or their partner
or their housemate. You can’t use the word contagious now in a good way since Covid, but we used to say knitting is so contagious because you get curious about it when you see someone else doing it.’
Knitting is an ancient craft. Believed to have originated in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean, it subsequently spread across northern Europe via trade routes. Originally practised by male guilds who made religious garments, it later became a popular means of making warm clothing, particularly in Northern Europe. The earliest complete knitted item is an Egyptian sock from the 11th or 12th century, but the skill may have been around much earlier.
Before knitting with two needles, there was needle binding, which involved looping and knotting yarn with a single needle and was associated with the Vikings. During both world wars there was a craze for knitting as women patriotically made scarves, hats, mittens and balaclavas for soldiers on the frontline, which were distributed by the Red Cross. Girls were taught to knit in school as it was seen as a valued domestic skill and in many families the art was passed on from mother to daughter.
In the 1920s, knitwear emerged as a fashionable rather than purely functional category. Coco Chanel was one of the first designers to include knits in her collections. Prior to that it was mainly used for underwear, socks and hosiery. Items like the long linear cardigans of the era spurred a craze for knitting and Vogue began to feature patterns. Knits were worn for popular sports like cricket, tennis and golf, and when the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII, was seen wearing a Fair Isle knit, it made the decorative style ultra-fashionable.
Hand-knitting thrived though the next five decades but by the 1980s its popularity had waned. The arrival of cheaper clothing and the new generation of synthetic fabrics made knitting seem redundant to many. Wearing a hand-knit was perceived as dated and frumpy, something for geeks and mummy’s boys. But now in a dramatic turnabout, handknitting is again cool.
Hipsters, millennials and even heartthrobs like Ryan Gosling are knitting in public and proudly displaying their crafty creations. It might be seeking relief from always-on culture, the dominance of smartphones and rising levels of anxiety about the state of the world, but whatever the motivation, people are picking up knitting to decompress and relax.
Internet fatigue has driven people to seek out alternatives to mindless scrolling but has also ironically facilitated the resurgence of knitting. Online communities like Ravelry – a website for knitters, crocheters and fibre artists with over 9 million users – and platforms like TikTok and Instagram have made knitting popular, while also hosting video tutorials and advice to support novices. There are now knitting podcasts, blogs and e-zines in which experienced knitters share their knowledge and tips.
It has never been easier to pick up some needles and if you drop a stitch there are multiple resources to help you fix it.
‘I would definitely say the internet is your friend, but the local yarn shop is your friend too,’ says Lisa Sisk. She recalls that for her first knit she picked ‘completely the wrong needle size and a yarn that wasn’t suitable for the hat’ and it came out in a size that ‘wouldn’t fit a baby’.
‘Going into a yarn shop is absolutely invaluable because those people live and breathe that,’ she says. ‘They can make sure that you’re equipped with the basic ingredients to achieve the best chance of success in your project.
‘The online resources are fantastic too – we do a virtual course for knitting a sweater which is handy, you can watch it in your own time. It’s called My First Sweater Follow Along and we’ve had over 400 people take it at this point.
‘You literally get guided – not just with videos, but with cheat sheets and work sheets – through the process of making your first sweater, making sure that it fits.’
This Is Knit is also very active on Instagram with its ‘Things I wish I’d known...’ series.
Lisa advises people not to get discouraged if their first pieces aren’t perfect as she says ‘wonkiness can sometimes add to the charm’ of a knit. She believes the actual act of knitting should be cherished as it gives ‘that licence to play and be creative and have fun’ and to do so in a medium that doesn’t involve specialist materials or machinery. ‘People want projects, they want to be more useful and make their own clothes and stuff,’ she says. ‘Knitting is so portable, you don’t need really specialist tools, you can pop it in your bag and bring it with you.’
One of the most successful yarns in Lisa’s shop is Ériú, which is a totally Irish wool. Ériú is the passion project
‘YOU DON’T NEED REALLY SPECIALIST TOOLS, YOU CAN POP IT IN YOUR BAG’
of Zoe Daly and Lionel Mackey, who farm in Donard, Co Wicklow. Their brand is named for the Irish goddess Ériú of the Tuatha De Danann, whose name translates as abundance. Zoe was inspired to start the business after her grandmother knit a baby blanket for her infant daughter. She then thought that offering Irish wool baby blankets would be a viable business but could not source any Irish wool to use because farmers had pivoted to focus on sheep breeds that suited meat production rather than soft wool. In a country full of sheep, there was no Irish wool.
The more she researched the idea, the more convinced she became that Irish yarn should be revived commercially. So she and Lionel set about looking for farmers who had breeds such as Romneys and Blue Face Leicesters with finer, softer wool. Irish farmers typically receive only 20 cent per kilo for their wool, which is considered too coarse for clothing. Instead, it is exported to China for carpets while we import softer merino wool from New Zealand, Turkey and China. Sheep farmers are told their Irish wool is worthless and it’s actually more expensive to shear a sheep than to sell its fleece.
‘We believe that Irish wool is not worthless, and with the right care and attention, it is an extraordinary natural fibre with natural antibacterial and anti-allergenic qualities, temperature-regulating fibres, and is 100% renewable, compostable and sustainable natural resource, which needs to be re-examined for purpose,’ says Zoe.
She and Lionel are now establishing a fair-trade network of sheep farmers to develop herds of those breeds by paying them over €2 per kilo for their yarn. Their Ériú wool is spun by Donegal yarns and is knitted into a range of items like blankets, sweaters, hats, mittens and snoods. The yarn – which Zoe say is ‘incredibly soft yet durable’ – can be used on a flat bed knitting machine or to hand-knit.
Fast fashion has devalued natural fibres according to Zoe, but she believes that ‘wool is wonderful’ and that we should be regenerating the Irish industry and rediscovering the heritage and history of the fibre. She says it is simply a ‘no-brainer’ to revive wool and make it a viable fashion source again.
For Lisa Sisk, wool is central to Irish culture too. ‘There’s such a rich heritage there and you know it was at risk of being lost but thankfully these sorts of ground root movements are making a difference now and hopefully that’s just going to build momentum,’ she says.
Lisa is keen to emphasise that knitting is good for us, stressing that it is relaxing, excellent for the agility of your brain and for retaining manual dexterity. ‘Look at it very holistically – it’s so good for your brain, it’s very good for your joints as well,’ she says.
Also, you can get involved in a stitching community – a lot of libraries have stitching groups, maintaining a social connection.
This Is Knit recently held its first social knitting event since the pandemic, and 40 people got together to socialise and knit: ‘Once you’ve got those needles in your hands, there’s your ice-breaker,’ says Lisa. ‘The sense of satisfaction that people get from making something with their own hands is immense.’