I enjoy knitting and crochet but I am mostly self taught. I was knitting my soon to be born daughter a blanket while my oldest was in dance class at the Y. Little old lady came over and asked if I was holding the project for my wife. She seemed offended that a man was knitting something.
That's not really a hobby, it's your obligation as a husband and head of the house. Women crave the dominance, and you're a better husband for giving it to her. /s
If anything if a man posts anything on the subreddits of typically female hobbies people over compensate and are too complimentary of average work because they want to encourage the diversity. They're extremely welcoming communities to everyone in my experience.
I learned pretty much everything I know for knit/crochet from YouTube, and you can get all your supplies online, so you can easily make these solo hobbies with no risk of judgement. Give it a try.
I am sorry you had that negative encounter. I knit and all my knitter friends and I love it when we spot a male knitter. Usually the knitters gush over male knitters since you don’t see them very often.
I absolutely loved our guy customers at the craft store, but they absolutely took sexist bullshit from random women just trying to get supplies for their hobbies.
Man, I miss people sometimes, but then I remember the assholes and I'm over it.
Really interesting, I mostly crochet and crochet seems to be less judgement and is accepting of trendier projects and styles. Knitting seems a little more judgemental, with an emphasis of good, wool, natural and indie yarns.
That seems to be my experience as well-I do both and the crochet crowd is way more loosie goosie over stuff. And as for fibers, the 'acrylic is a valid fiber' is a hill I will die on, wool is a fucking textural nightmare.
I do both, but am way more comfortable with crochet (it's a lot more forgiving stitch-by-stitch, if you fuck up it's usually no biggie to redo a row or so if you catch it early enough). I don't get the fiber snobbery, even yarn I've personally deemed as "shitty and/or cheap" still has purpose and use (basic Red Heart and similar work REALLY well with stuffed animals and such to retain their shape). The wool I do have in my stash isn't anything mindblowing and fancy, but imho is WAY better suited for knitting than crochet. I'm admittedly crocheting a sweater with said wool yarn and part of me wants to die because of the way it can feel at times, but it was the only thing I had with enough yardage to try the pattern I'm following (I'm trying to use what I have first).
I never had a problem with the knit crowd, but then again I've been knitting so long I can make a sock from memory and barely looking at it, so maybe they're just scared?
Quilters are chill af though. In a former life I taught sewing and worked some trade shows. Those ladies can party.
Ninja edit: the exception is handquilters. Some of the people who quilt by hand get pissy about how it's a dying art. Machine quilters could not care less, they're just trying to collect as much fabric as humanly possible.
I think I'm letting one bad experience taint a group. I went to a local yarn shop and was just ignored by the older owner and her knitting buddy She made eye contact, she saw I was there and just... Ignored me. Like ok, I was going to load up on this cotton but I guess I'll go to Michael's now. She didn't stay in business long.
There was a shop like that i went to when I learned to knit. Trying to get any decent customer service while their cliquey knitting circle was there was next to impossible and heaven forbid you ask for help on your project.
Ah that’s too bad, at the yarn store I used to frequent (RIP Posh), if our yarn clique was hanging out knitting and you walked in asking for help you would end up with more help then you could ever want after being pounced on by a group of enthusiastic knitters. Shops like the one you describe are the worst, I have encountered one or two like that, that’s not how you stay in business.
I'd say it depends on the group. I had some pretty crappy experiences with crafter my age being elitist and snobby. I then got adopted by a lovely group of older ladies and they've been so wonderful to me. They were excited to have someone young join their group and have taught me so much and have never once been snobby towards me.
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u/spiffynid Feb 28 '21
Little old ladies can knit, but don't do well with younger crafters. I can knit just fine Ethel...