What started as a few knitters getting together on a Zoom call has become a brick-and-mortar space to unwind and meet other yarn crafters. Located at 144 Brook St., Knit Club is a welcoming space for Providence locals and students to work on their knitting projects and become part of a full-fledged knitting community. It hosts weekly crafting circles on Tuesday evenings and Sunday afternoons.
The crafting circles are accompanied by soft instrumental music and a bottle of wine that rests on the large family-style table. The Herald attended a Tuesday craft circle and observed as attendees quickly filled up the room and unpacked their crafting supplies and spools of yarn. Within minutes, projects were well underway.
Some attendees asked for advice on which type of yarn to use. Others walked in wearing completed projects they’d made in the weeks prior. Some even brought baked goods for the group to share.
According to Lindsay Degen, the founder and manager of Knit Club, there are very few requirements for membership: “You’re a member of the club if you show up and make.”
Attendees had a wide range of knitting experience — some had been knitting for years, and others were in their first month of learning.
“I knitted really poorly in high school, (when) I didn’t know anything about yarn weight and needle sizes, and I just kind of made it work. Then I got really into crochet, and I’m now trying to learn how to knit again,” said Michelle Jennings, a knitter at the Tuesday craft circle. “This is literally my first knitting attempt in 13 years.”
For less experienced knitters, the yarn store hosts an array of workshops, ranging from 101 knitting classes to courses teaching more elaborate projects.
Amadi Williams, a Knit Club employee who teaches the 101 workshops, said that the classes have a “100% success rate” so far.
The 101 workshops feature “a lot of beginnings,” Williams said. “I think it’s really about supporting people as they’re going through it.”
“This is the first store I’ve been at where it’s fostering such a sense of community, and it’s really exciting for me,” she added.
Williams excitedly described attendees' curiosity and commitment to learning. “There was a woman that came in who had one hand, and she learned to knit and had a solid chunk of a scarf by the time we were done with the class,” she said. “She was so dedicated, and we found different ways to go around her not being able to use both hands to knit. That was really cool.”
Williams shared that once, a girl, who’d come in for a 101 class and stayed after to make sure she understood everything, returned and made “full-on bunnies.”
In addition to the 101 workshops, Knit Club also offers a lot of project-based courses, according to Degen.
The longer-term project classes are often taught weekly with attendees typically returning each session to continue working on their project. A recent workshop taught the process of knitting a small lobster toy, and an upcoming workshop will teach participants how to knit a mushroom.
The store is the only one of its kind in the area, Degen said. “I had the overwhelming feeling that Providence has always been in need of a yarn store, and there hasn’t been one in Providence for a long time now.” Within the first week of offering the knit circle, she said, “people came immediately.”
Though Degen was initially concerned about a lack of younger attendees at the craft circle, she said she intentionally planned the circles to be at convenient times for different age groups. “I’m really proud that, while we welcome everybody, it caters to the younger end of the knitting spectrum,” she said.
“I did a private lesson with a girl that was maybe eight or nine, and now she’s knitting a whole bunch of hats for her friend with cancer,” Williams said.
One of the key goals of the store is to “create a space of belonging, especially for non-represented crafters,” Degen said. “Crafters tend to skew white, so I try to foster something that can make diversity happen, both in age and everything that you can think of.”
Williams added that “this community can sometimes looks very one-sided, and so it’s really exciting to see such a range of people in a space like this.”
Degen also described the split between new and returning attendees as “about half-and-half.”
“I will say, every week is different,” Williams said. “There’s people that I will know the names of, and what projects they’re working on,” while there are others she is meeting for the first time.
Degen also said the Knit Club will occasionally host events to foster community. In late September, the store hosted a Lord of the Rings-themed birthday party on the day of the fictional character Bilbo Baggins’s birthday. “We streamed the trilogy back to back to back, and we had a knitting marathon.”
The event ran nine and a half hours. “We had to open early and close late,” she said.
