There is growing evidence that knitting is on the rise and has become genuinely fashionable – no longer something associated only with grandmothers and baby patterns.
The reputation, and where it came from
For much of the twentieth century knitting was a domestic necessity rather than a hobby. People knitted because clothes were expensive, and once they stopped being expensive, a generation largely stopped knitting.
What remained was the association: an older person, in an armchair, making something practical. That image stuck for decades after it stopped being accurate.
What changed
Several things at once.
The internet. Patterns became instantly available, video tutorials removed the need for someone to teach you in person, and knitters found each other worldwide rather than only locally. Someone with no knitting relatives can now learn entirely alone.
Independent designers. Patterns stopped coming only from yarn companies and magazines with conservative house styles. Designers now write, test and sell their own work, and the range of what gets made expanded enormously.
Visible making. As mass-produced clothing became cheap and disposable, making things by hand acquired a certain value it had lost.
Social knitting. Groups meeting in cafés and pubs made it a public activity rather than a private one.
Who knits now
Everybody, which is the point. Knitting groups routinely contain people in their twenties and people in their eighties working on the same problem, and that is genuinely unusual among hobbies.
It appeals across demographics because what it offers – something to do with your hands, a break from screens, a finished object, company – is not age-specific.
Why the reputation persists anyway
Mostly inertia, and partly because it is a convenient shorthand.
It is worth pushing back on, because it puts people off. Someone who would enjoy knitting and does not try it because of an outdated image has lost something for no reason.
If you are thinking about it
The barrier is low: two needles and a ball of yarn.
Smooth, light-coloured yarn on bamboo needles around 5mm. Something flat where the fit does not matter. Finish it however it looks.
And find a group. They are more varied and more welcoming than the reputation suggests.
