(AFP) – The needles rattle, the stitches intertwine and the gossip fuses: a rather banal knitting group on this sunny Sunday in March near Washington. With one detail: the participants are men.
There are about ten of them from DC Men Knit, a club of knitting and crochet enthusiasts in the American capital, who meet twice a month to create scarves, hats and blankets.
The objective of this friendly pelota: “To offer a refuge for men to knit together, share advice, help each other, because knitting has long been seen as a feminine activity”, explains the group’s coordinator, Gene Throwe.
This employee of a 51-year-old association finishes in a cozy atmosphere the brown sweater, with a discreet golden pattern, which he has regularly put back on the job for several years.
Like many of his friends, he grew up watching his grandmother crochet. And his nostalgia was tinged with regret when he saw the new generations abandon the arts of the needle. Then suddenly he realized he could fix it himself: “Why expect it to be women” who keep these techniques going? “I can do it too!”
This merry band of bearded studious bent over their work attracts attention, yes, but not hostility. “Grandmothers walking by often stare at us like we’re Martians,” laughs Gene.
– Knitwear, banana and Bermuda shorts –
Throughout history, men have always knitted, whether they were members of brotherhoods of knitters in the Middle Ages or schoolchildren who, in the United Kingdom and the United States, made blankets for departed soldiers. fight Nazi Germany.
From now on, this practice of knitting among men is becoming commonplace again.
Sam Barsky, slightly bald head and friendly smile, banana around his hips and Bermuda shorts by 3°C, may not correspond to the image we have of influencers, but he emerges at nearly half a million followers on Instagram and TikTok combined.
Anyone who likes to define himself as an “artist knitter” never ceases to amaze Internet users with his freehand knits, uniquely designed sweaters, inspired by landscapes, monuments or cultural works.
Niagara Falls or the skyscrapers of New York, the stones of Stonehenge or the Eiffel Tower, penguins, robots or even the Wizard of Oz: it’s all there. Sam Barsky has sweaters for all occasions, birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Christmas or Hanukkah.
He even dedicated a sweater… to his sweaters: About thirty of his creations appear there in miniature. His boundless creativity earned him an exhibit at the American Museum of Visionary Arts in Baltimore.
On another — cold — morning in March, he found AFP at Oregon Ridge Park, north of Baltimore on the US east coast. It is in particular there that he refocused his art when the borders closed with the arrival of the Covid-19.
He therefore immortalized in wool the slender trunks of the trees in this park, fifty of which were painted in 2017 in tribute to people who have overcome their addiction to drugs or alcohol.
– Pandemic –
Although he is eager to be able to travel the world again without fear for his health, the pandemic has not only had bad sides: his TikTok account, opened in September 2020, quickly attracted more people than the one he he had been feeding for years on Instagram.
And after the confinements, his knitting groups “had a much bigger crowd, because a lot of people had started knitting during this period”, he explains.
Like bread or ceramics, wool was a safe haven against the boredom and anxiety of the first months of the coronavirus. A dynamic at work almost everywhere in the world and illustrated in the United States by the former First Lady Michelle Obama, who now shows off the sweaters she knitted for her husband Barack by promoting his books on TV sets.
Among the knitters of DC Men Knit, everyone gets something out of it: for Gene, it’s a way of “reclaiming something that can be modern and useful”; for Devlin Breckenridge, a 48-year-old video game aficionado, it’s a “little more creative” activity than “killing virtual monsters”; and for Michael Manning, 58, it’s “simply very relaxing”.
And then, summarizes the influencer Sam Barsky, “knitting is not just for grandmothers. It’s for anyone, of any age or gender, who wants and enjoys knitting”.
