Crocheters and Knitters, Can't We All Just Get Along?

There seems to be a long-standing feud between some crocheters and knitters, as evidenced by a lively thread that appeared on the International Freeform Crochet Guild’s Yahoo Group forum. This is a wonderful forum of women and men dedicated to the art of freeform needlework. Despite the name of the group, we have knitters, beaders, embroiderers, and spinners as well as crocheters among us. If you can apply freeform techniques to a craft, you’re more than welcome to join.

The thread actually started as a question to members of the group about loyalty to one’s local yarn store, what we affectionately refer to as an LYS. An LYS is usually a small, independently owned yarn store that carries yarn on the expensive end of the price scale as opposed to the less expensive yarns that are sold in the big chain craft stores. They often have a place in the store where you can “sit and stitch” with other needle-crafters and take classes offered. The member was wondering whether people have more than one LYS where they shop, how many they patronize, and whether or not they use yarn from the LYS during “sit and stitch” sessions or bring in yarn purchased elsewhere.

The very first comment to this post included a reference to the fact that the LYS where she lives isn’t nice to crocheters. The spirited discussion that followed focused on members’ experiences at their own LYS and whether or not they were crochet-friendly.

I would say that members' experiences were about evenly split between those who had negative experiences, i.e., LYS owners and patrons looked down on or snubbed their noses at crochet, and positive experiences like my own, where the LYS owner welcomes knitters and crocheters alike. But even those of us who have had positive LYS experiences have also experienced this anti-crochet bias in one form or another. Interestingly enough, members from the British Isles and Australia where surprised to hear about it, commenting that they weren’t aware of it until they started interacting with American crocheters and knitters. So it seems to be a uniquely American phenomenon

We then speculated about where this seeming “anti-crochet” bias originated. One member thought that people often become set in their ways or even threatened when a different way of doing things is offered. Another member believed that because there are more knitters than crocheters (knitting has been around a lot longer than crochet, a fairly recent development), crocheters are treated like many ethnic minorities in this country.

Class distinction was another reason offered, but these views varied widely. One member recounted a story about her daughter whose friend told her that, “"In (a southern state) where I come from only the servants crochet." Someone else had read a book discussing the origins of crochet which stated that servants were encouraged to knit during the 19^th century in the United States because knitting was used to produce everyday items like socks while the upper class women crocheted to create delicate lace

A while back, I attended a book signing by the author of The Happy Hooker, Debbie Stoller, also the author of many knitting books. One of the important points she made was that crochet was excellent for some things, like sculpturing, accessories (e.g., belts, bags, jewelry), and home décor items (e.g., pillows and afghans), while knitting was excellent for other things, like sweaters and other garments. That’s not to say that you can’t crochet a sweater or knit an afghan, both of which I've done.

The point she was making was that we need to respect both fiber arts for what each has to offer and be willing to not only learn new skills but experiment with the ones we know. There are, for example, fiber artists who combine knitting and crochet in their work.

She also asked audience members to indicate with a show of hands those who knit exclusively, who crochet exclusively, and those who do both. I and a couple other members of this standing-room only audience were the only ones who both crochet and knit.

Clearly, there’s much opportunity for an exciting exchange of ideas and skills between crocheters and knitters. And as I ended my offering to this discussion on the forum, “Can’t we all just get along?”