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With over five million participants in the UK and celebrity advocates including Kate Moss and Catherine Zeta-Jones, knitting is taking the world by storm. Whitney Goulstone looks at an artform that is coming out of the closet.

This years annual textile event at the V&A, The Art of the Stitch, had an added attraction Design for Knitting. The Crafts Councils exhibition Knit 2 Together: Concepts in Knitting, is currently touring the UK after an extended run in London. It would appear that a craft traditionally relegated to the domain of community leisure activity is gaining popularity and status fast. So, why is this happening? And has knitting now been pushed into the ranks of acceptable artforms?

Knitting has always been considered an acceptable hobby or pastime, especially among older folk, but things have changed. Since 2002, a record 150% increase in the number of 2534 year-olds taking up knitting and crochet has cracked the stereotype. There are currently over 5 million knitters in the UK and knitting websites are enjoying a 50% increase in hits. Charity knitting groups are on the rise and celebrities have been rushing to proclaim their enthusiasm for knitting. This begs the question: what is it about knitting that has got everyone picking up their needles?

Many knitters have felt the calming effects of knitting and science suggests this is no mere placebo effect. Dr Herbert Benson, founding President of the Mind/Body Institute at Harvard Medical School, discusses these benefits in his best-selling book The Relaxation Response: Working with yarn provides stress relief. Like meditation or prayer, knitting allows for the passive release of stray thoughts. The rhythmic and repetitive quality of the stitching, along with the needles clicking, resembles a calming mantra. The mind can wander while still focusing on one task.

Knitting has also been prescribed by doctors and physiotherapists for pain relief. Stitchlinks, a support and friendship network for people who wish to use knitting and stitching as therapy, is collaborating with Cardiff University on a major study, beginning early 2006, to look at the benefits of knitting and cross stitch to sufferers of chronic pain and depression. This will be the first study to specifically examine the psychological effects of knitting.

The Big Knit started out as a small project in the Shrewsbury area for knitters, of all ages, to contribute their knitting to needy causes. They started with one charitable cause knitting baby clothes for premature babies at the Mowbray Maternity Clinic in South Africa. The project exceeded all expectations! Over the next few months hundreds of knitters joined from all over the world, Aberdeen to Australia, and donated, literally, rooms full of clothes. Knitters wrote letters and emails to the projects founder, Sarah Shires, thrilled that their knitting would go to a good cause, others said they had been advised to use knitting as part of their occupational therapy and this was a great opportunity to use the activity positively.

In the UK, knitting is a £2bn a year industry and demand is pushing manufacturers to produce more fun and funkier yarns. Knitted artefacts from the functional to the objet dart are becoming more and more innovative. Just like all good pottery, weaving and jewellery making, knitting involves skill and creativity competencies well illustrated in the recent round of prestigious exhibitions.

So, have the boundaries and expectations as to what knitting is and where it fits in the art and craft world been pushed far enough yet? It would appear that creative activities, in this case knitting, traditionally located in the community and leisure worlds, are still not seen as art. At times it seems it is the very fact that such activities bring about social cohesion, calm children, reduce stress and improve health, and are popular and communal, that stops them from being considered as an art form. However, the reality is that they also express and reflect human activity (in themselves and as a medium) and that the artefacts produced range from the mundane to the very interesting, increasingly controversial and often beautiful. But is this enough to prove that knitting has shed its old boundaries and is now very definitely an art form worthy of the widest recognition both social and artistic?

Whitney Goulstone is Information Officer at Voluntary Arts Network. t: 029 2039 5395;
e: info@voluntaryarts.org

For more information, visit www.bigknit.org.uk; http://www.stitchlinks.com