Knitting is for blokes too. Of course men knit, men have always knitted, in fact men knitted more than women - Just read the history of knitting and you will see that the origins of knitting are sailors making fishing nets, spread by sailors and merchants to different ports, it then became a male only trade around 1500 men knitting socks, and in many non western countries men knit as a matter of course. (info from menknit.net)

So why the big deal about whether of not men (in western society at least) knit? I don’t know either, but maybe it doesn’t have enough machismo factor, or maybe the picture of grandma knitting is too ingrained in our collective recent conscience - not to mention our general society is (for the most part) judgemental and predjudiced. No wonder that men who knit are fiercely protective of their desire to knit in the company of other men. A news story that hit the headlines recently featured a ‘boyz night’ in New York, where a popular yarn store hosts a mens knitting night “Believe me, we love women,” said store manager Josh Bennett. “But it’s like when guys get together to watch a football game, they have all that in common so there’s that sense of excitement. After a long week, you can come and work on your project have a couple of beers and hang out.” (routers)
Another article posted on influx, a university journalism website, is subtitled “Disregarding machismo, some men challenge convention with balls of wool” this article focuses on three mens knitting journey and luckily “some young men are defying the gender roles assigned to knitting and crocheting, one stitch at a time.” Also a great article at knitty titled “knit like a man, written by david who also has his own knitting blog - interesting article about beginning to knit for men, why do it, and the fact that it is a great women attractor, not to mention “creative, meditative, relatively inexpensive, portable, practical, easy to learn and difficult to master.”

This button is from yarnboy “are you a boy who knits? Do you know a boy who knits? Do you just like the idea of boys knitting? Then this button is for you.”

The online community have opened their arms to knitting men, and men who previously knitted alone at home now discuss their pastime on open forums, on their blog, in knitting circles and have public male knitting groups. Isn’t it wonderful. ‘man enough to knit strong enough to purl’ is the opening statement on the men knit website, a welcoming website with community participation.

Lots of male knitting blogs out there here are a few that I have found -
The panopticon -
queer joe’s knitting blog -
jon’s knitting blog -
sean’s soapbox
knitdad -
menwhoknit blog -
yarnboy -
knit like a man -
hizknits -
adam knits (a lot) -

menknit magazine second edition is out now

Are you a knitting man with a blog not listed? - leave a comment
Also if you have a friend, husband, brother, father or son who loves to knit - pass article on to them.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 4th, 2006 at 5:32 am and is filed under knitting+crochet+yarn. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.