Books and knitting go hand-in-hand

Equity, social justice and inclusion do too. Or, why I want you to read diverse kids’ books with me.

Hello friends! I am continually astounded to learn how many people started knitting in the early days of the pandemic (so many!) and are just now connecting to the beautiful and bursting world of hand-dyed yarn, knitwear design, knitting Instagram, Ravelry, and more of the online and physical gathering spaces for fiber enthusiasts.

I am an OG knitter in all of these spaces, and today I want to share a bit of Knitting History with you.

It’s a tender story and one that has left deep and meaningful imprints on my life. If you are new to knitting, you should know this story. If you are a lifelong knitter, like me, it’s a story you shouldn’t forget. And, if you don’t use Instagram or Ravelry, you should definitely know this story.

In early 2019, the knitting community “experienced a reckoning when crafters of color began sharing personal stories about exclusion and racial injustice,” writes Jen Hewett, one of a few prominent women of color in the fiber crafts community, in her book This Long Thread: Women of Color on Craft, Community and Connection. (If you don’t already have a copy, go buy and read Jen’s book right now; it centers the diverse voices of innovative artists and crafters of color who are often ignored by mainstream media.)

This reckoning was triggered by an insensitive blog post by a prominent white woman in the knitting industry. In response to it, so many knitters and crafters of color shared so many tender, vulnerable and shocking-to-me stories of racism, exclusion, and injustice. But here’s the thing: the stories were shocking to me only because I’m a white woman. Until that point, I had only superficially examined my own racial privilege, and I had not seen the deeper injustices and exclusion that were happening all around me. Not a single person of color I knew was shocked by any of these stories. Rather, everyone had their own stories of racism and exclusion to share.

Once I started reading and hearing these stories, on Instagram and beyond, it was like suddenly realizing that water is wet. Racial harm and injustice were obvious and significant and omnipresent—not just in knitting but all around me. And I had seen only the most obvious of it. I realized an important truth: I had been complicit in upholding this very oppressive feeling of whiteness.

My personal reckoning with the truth of racial injustice has reverberated through my business and life for a while now, and it’s one of these reverberations I want to share with you today: the book club I co-host.

Why my business has a book club

I started my business in 2013 around the idea of making book-themed knitting kits—yarn, a project bag, and notions that brought to life a particular book I had loved as a child. These were books I was, then, reading to my own young child. Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, The Velveteen Rabbit.

Books and knitting have always seemed to go hand in hand.

Cut to early 2019: As I often do, I turned to books to help me understand how I could have ignored the racial injustice and oppression happening all around me. I read Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want To Talk About Race. I worked through Layla Saad’s then-workbook, now book, Me and White Supremacy. I read Austin Channing Brown’s I’m Still Here. Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness.

And I thought about my business, with its platform of book-reading knitters.

I reached out to a friend who’s a children’s librarian, fiber artist and woman of color with the idea of co-creating a book club that would help fellow crafters (and myself) make sense of the ongoing racial reckoning in the knitting world and expand our abilities to create more welcoming crafting spaces.

We envisioned a short-term club, just three books and lasting just three months. We decided to read middle-grade and young adult fiction, because that’s the kind of literature we both love. We also wanted to springboard off the rigorous work being done in the We Need Diverse Books movement.

Our idea was received warmly and enthusiastically: more than 100 knitters signed up to be dues-paying members and read with us.

Then, right in the middle of our club, someone who was preview knitting for my business was harassed, doxxed, and threatened by far-right knitters on Ravelry. (I share the full story in this episode at the 56:14 mark of The Knitmore Girls Podcast.) The book we were reading at the time was Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson. My book club co-founder had chosen it specifically because she thought it would model ways to hold space for others who have had (or are in the midst of) racial trauma.

Reading this book was life-changing for me, and gave me a model of how to support my preview knitter.

I started an online campaign that eventually grew to include thousands of voices, urging Ravelry to create greater protections for knitters of color, and specifically to eliminate the way my friend had been harassed through the Ravelry platform. In response, Ravelry made the momentous decision to deplatform Trump supporters as a way of making Ravelry’s online spaces less prone to racial (and other types of) harassment. Meaning: Open support for Trump on the Ravelry website has not been allowed since June 2019 because “support for the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy.” A simple and truthful rationale.

When our short-term book club ended, my co-founder and I reflected that club members had embarked upon deep self-reflection, built an authentic community space, and reached across racial divides to support one another. We wanted more of this—for ourselves, in our online spaces, and at in-person gatherings. So we decided to make the club more permanent.

After adjusting to pandemic life, we debuted our permanent book club on Patreon in July 2020.

29 books later …

Two and a half years, anywhere from 40 to 60 people each month, 29 books, and 233 posts later, our book club is going strong, and I invite you to join us.

I have a goal to gather 100 knitters, every month, as a community of diverse makers who love books, yarn, and equity, and are quietly working to become more anti-racist.

Let me tell you about the club …

We read diverse kids' books to understand how, each of us in our own way, can advocate for justice and center the need for a softer, better world for Black, Indigenous and People of Color—and all of us who are pushed to the margins.¹

Why I want you to read kids’ books

I love kids’ books. My book club co-founder is a children’s librarian, so she clearly loves kids’ books too!

If you are not yet an enthusiast of children’s literature, I am here to tell you that this genre contains some of the most beautiful, moving, and elegantly told stories. In our book club, we read diverse books written in #ownvoices for middle grades and young adults.

• Why kids' books? Because there are so many good ones being published, and (being super honest here) it’s easy to read (or listen to) one a month because they’re shorter than full-length adult novels. But, they are just as powerful and the stories are far from simple. There are also lots of good ones. There is a powerful movement to publish diverse books within the children’s literature field and, as a result, there are so many new, creative, and compelling books by authors of color at the middle grade and young adult reading levels.

• Why diverse books? Reading diverse books is important not just for children and teens of color, but for everyone. Scholar Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop explains that diverse children’s books can “help us understand each other better by helping to change our attitudes towards difference ... (books) act as both mirrors and windows for all our children.” If you’re white, like me, Dr. Bishop makes a powerful case for why white people need to read diverse books: “People from dominant social groups ... need books that will help them understand the multicultural nature of the world they live in, and their place as a member of just one group, as well as their connections to all other humans.”

You’re invited to join us

I believe that reading diverse books is a critical way to become more informed and brave about race and racial justice. This is precisely what we hope our book club inspires in you.

We currently have anywhere from 40 to 60 members each month, and I am starting a bit of a membership drive to grow our group. I’m also reconfiguring how we structure our discussions, when we hold monthly Zoom craft-and-talk sessions, and more.

Kathy, my co-founder, and I would love for you to be part of the group, read books with us, and be part of shaping how the club grows and what it offers.

Here’s what you should know:

• Sometimes, we read banned books. This month, we are reading the graphic novel, Maus. We read award-winning books, always written in #ownvoices, and books that seek to expand our understanding of diversity and inclusion.

• We have membership dues, which are $10 a month. I believe fiercely in fair pay for makers—and especially the Black, Indigenous and People of Color teachers who are making our world more anti-racist. Membership dues are split with 80% going to Kathy for her intellectual leadership and 20% to me for administrative work (like this membership drive) and to enable me to pay for consulting, artwork and other supports the club needs. We offer pay-what-you-can dues as low as $1 a month if you need a sliding scale.

• Our book club is hosted on Patreon. This makes it easy for me to keep it separate from my regular business, and operate it as a standalone program.

• We have a yarn tier of membership, where you can receive a commemorative skein of yarn dyed by a dyer of color. The dyer receives your full retail payment (I do not take any commission whatsoever). Our yarn dyers for the next year are Seismic Yarn, Mitchell’s Creations, Waifu Yarn, Alwan Sultan Fibers, and Kitty Pride Fibers (the private label of Dye Hard Yarn shop) .

I’ll be sharing more about the book club throughout my membership drive, with more stories, a taste of the type of reading guides my co-founder creates for us, and more.

If you would like to skip posts that are specifically about my book club, do this:

1. Go to your Settings page

2. Scroll down to Subscriptions, and click on “Anne is Making”

3. In the middle of the page, under “Notifications,” untick the box next to “Anne Loves Books”

You’ll continue to get my regular Sunday letters, and nothing more about the book club.

And, if the idea of our book club is already resonating with you, you can join us here.

1. This phrasing is the way scholar Rudine Sims Bishop explains the need for diverse children’s books.
In addition, you will notice that I am white and Kathy is a woman of color. Because this club provides foundational work for anti-racism, my role is appropriately focused on administration and Kathy provides our intellectual leadership. You can read more about revenue-sharing, transparency, and our guiding values in our public posts on Patreon.