Grandma's hobbies are back, including in Detroit
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
/2024/12/13/1734112255533.gif?w=3840)
Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Hobbies like knitting, sewing and quilting are helping people connect and thrive.
The big picture: Activities typically enjoyed by boomers like gardening, homesteading, needlepoint and crochet are all taking off more and more with younger generations, including on TikTok.
- It's all part of the slower living aesthetic, also popular on TikTok.
By the numbers: Posts with #needlepoint on TikTok increased by 400% for the first 10 months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, the social platform shared with Axios.
Zoom in: From crafting hobbies to art careers, fiber has a home in Detroit.
- Post, a home and goods shop on the east side, sells crafting kits and hosts workshops for embroidery, felted soap, needle felting and more.
- Parker Avenue Knits in Rivertown sells indie and high-end brand yarn, while also offering knitting and crochet classes.
- Akoma, formerly Detroit Fiber Works, is a space for fiber creatives and other kinds of artists in the North End that teaches natural dying and other fiber art techniques.
- An art exhibition in September showcased 60 local fiber artists in collaboration with a local group called Fiber Club.
Reality check: While popularity has risen among younger people recently, especially during the pandemic, there have always been solid communities of knitters and needle artists of all ages.
- Knitting has a close relationship and long history with radical activism, for example, as PBS writes. The term "craftivist" surfaced around knitting and crocheting publicly as a political statement.
What they're saying: Sally Moore, who opened Parker Avenue Knits in 2022, told the Free Press that the pandemic helped people understand the importance of human connection through activities like crafting.
- "When you get people together around this common activity, they will see each other and have meaningful conversations about real things that matter most in their lives," Moore said.
Zoom in: As interest has spiked in fiber-based arts like knitting, crocheting, weaving and more, Detroit-based Fiber Club* brings together anyone from beginners to seasoned artists, according to managing director Meg Morley and founder Katie Shulman.
- Shulman, who founded the group in 2022, tells Axios she has found that their participants share a growing desire to practice in public and create community, as well as experiment with different processes and mediums.
The bottom line: Fiber has become "front and center" through the pandemic, Shulman says. "It's easy to access … it just goes directly to connection, because it is made out of the things that make us feel comforted, like our clothes, like our bed sheets," she adds.