What is it about?
Knitting is today understood as a hip, youthful, public leisure activity but where does this leave older women who are life-long knitters within the home? Through focus groups with female knitters in the UK, we have shown that despite not corresponding with media representations of 'cool' knitting, traditional knitting practices are meaningful in women's lives.
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Why is it important?
Our findings show that, although traditional 'granny knitting' is usually dismissed as boring and insignificant when compared to young women's public crafting, older women's domestic leisure activities are equally as important and show that shifts are taking place in gender, ideas of the home and women's work.
Perspectives
Research with knitters in 'knit "n" natter' focus groups was a real pleasure and opened up opportunities to hear from life-long knitters who have been neglected by some other leisure research.
Katherine Harrison
Leeds Beckett University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “Grandma never knit like this”: reclaiming older women’s knitting practices from discourses of new craft in Britain, Leisure Studies, February 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/02614367.2019.1579852.
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