About | My Site

About My Project

Motivation

I was originally motivated to study London's knitting community because I picked up the hobby myself a few months before leaving for the UK and Ireland. Given that this part of the world has some very old knitting traditions in place (such as Fair Isle knitting or Aran sweaters), I thought it would be interesting to explore how people approach that art in the cosmopolitan, modern setting of London.

Research question

I eventually settled upon this question:

How do knitters across London use technology to communicate with each other, especially when it comes to arranging knitting groups/meetups?

Background

London is often referred to as a "city of villages". When it comes to knitting communities, this feels both true and untrue. I met a few people at various knitting circles that commuted from far-away neighborhoods to attend. However, some knitting groups also felt hyper-local, wherein most of the members lived within a couple blocks of each other. This affects what sorts of technologies and interfaces members needed to stay in touch with each other.

Fieldwork

Most of my fieldwork was done in the form of participant observation. I attended knitting circles across the city (as well as a "pic-knit"), asking questions of people who seemed willing to engage in conversation. I also visited several well-known yarn shops to learn about how these places serve as information hubs for the knitting community.

Another large segment of my fieldwork was done online, looking at different websites such as Reddit and UKHandKnitting.com to see how knitting group/meeting information is communicated.

Here are just a few of the key concepts that I took away relating to how knitting group information is dispersed in London's knitting community:

Information about meetings and groups is spread across multiple websites that are not frequently updated. This can make it difficult to find accurate information in order to attend a group.
Knitters of different ages often use different platforms to discuss knitting and group meetings. For example, older people use Facebook to share information, while younger people may advertise their groups on Reddit or Instagram.
Ravelry seems to be a common ground for knitters of different ages to gather online.

Future Research

Because of the limited time for this project, there are many things that I wish I could have dived deeper into. Future areas for research include:

What is the degree of overlap between London neighborhoods at different knitting groups/events?
On what paths outside of the Internet does information travel within the London knitting community?
How does knitting circle conversation function as shared cognition within the community?