You might be wondering how knitting and writing are related, but they have a lot of similarities. They both require a tremendous amount of skill, patience, and consistency. Like a sweater, a novel is a project that takes many days of consistent effort to complete. Both are built in tiny increments — word by word, stitch by stitch. Sometimes you have to unravel a section and start over. Both require craft, creativity, and patience.

While it’s hard to get a firm number on how many people in the world knit, Forbes magazine estimates that approximately 45 million Americans know how to knit, so it seems inevitable that there would be some overlap between knitters and writers.

I had no idea how pervasive that overlap was, though, until I came across two essay collections edited by Ann Hood (who has herself written a novel about knitting). The two collections are Knitting Yarns and Knitting Pearls, and they feature such literary giants as Barbara Kingsolver, Elizabeth Berg, Jodi Picoult, Ann Patchett, Sue Grafton, Diana Gabaldon, Dani Shapiro, Andre Dubus III, Bill Roorback, and Steve Almond.

Until recently, I never really thought of knitting as something special, or that it would be a worthy writing topic. I learned to knit when I was ten years old, and it was a hobby my mother and I always shared. Sometimes it can be hard to recognize something special about your family until you see it through the eyes of another.

For the past few months, I have been going on a deep-dive on fiction and narrative non-fiction stories about knitting. It has been absolutely fascinating to learn about how knitting has impacted the lives of other writers, and in the role knitting sometimes plays in their creative process.

The more I looked, the more stories I found about writer-knitters. I think Tara Ison does a good job describing what knitting gives her as a writer: 

“My professional life as a writer is a life of the mind. But knitting is a bodily, sensual, tactile experience. Knitting offers an escape from the writer’s mind […] Even if I’m thinking about my work while I knit, it’s almost as if the yarn […] absorbs the interior white noise, which frees me up to focus.”

She goes on to say that she uses knitting breaks the way another writer might use a cigarette break. Or a drinking break. Knitting is certainly healthier!

“Sometimes I put in 12-hour days [writing]. Numerous times throughout the day, I’ll literally have a sudden need to go to the couch and knit for half an hour. Like someone else might take a cigarette break. When I feel my body physically choking up, and I need to get out of my chair. Or when I hit a place in the work where things are snarled, then I need to work with something that isn’t snarled. Working with my hands […] I don’t consciously try to think of ways to undo writing knots. But after about 20 minutes of knitting, I’m able to go back to the work. I then find that my consciousness has done a lot of the work for me.” — p. 130-131, Tara Ison, screenwriter and author of A Child Out of Alcatraz. This quote is from an interview in the book Zen and the Art of Knitting by Burnadette Murphy

How knitting affects my work as a writer:

For a while, I gave up knitting because it was too easy—whereas writing was hard. I would knit daydream about the stories I wanted to write someday, but the act of knitting took time away from producing those stories. I only have two hands. The hours in the day are limited. Knitting got pushed to the back of the closet.

Additionally, I have to be aware of my hands. When I write or knit too much, my wrists become inflamed. Wrist tendonitis. Strength training has certainly improved my stamina and eased my discomfort somewhat, but I still have to respect my body’s limits. For writing, I can use dictation to protect my wrists and save them for when I have to edit, handwrite, or when typing isn’t avoidable. I have a split ergonomic keyboard, and I try to write at a stand-up desk whenever I can.

For knitting, I need to pay attention to my body and know when to stop. I’ve also noticed that using needles or material that is too small is rough on my hands, which why I’m reluctant to knit socks because they require the tiniest of yarns and needles. I feel most comfortable using needles between size 3 and 9.

Now that I have written and published a couple of books and my son is a little older, I feel like I am not as rushed. I’ve brought knitting back into my life because it brings me so much joy.

I love the idea of using knitting as a smoke-free way to take a break and look out the window… so long as I put the knitting down and go back to my writing desk.

I’m a very wiggly person and sometimes the hardest part of writing is just sitting down. Without knitting keeping me put, I’m most likely to get up and pace around the house looking for something to clean.

Most often, though, I find myself knitting during times when writing doesn’t make sense, like when I want to be physically and emotionally present for my friends and family. It feels wonderful to snuggle next to my family on the couch with a knitting project in my lap. Or to look out the window, as a passenger on a long car ride, with a puddle of lace slowly gathering shape in my lap.

It has been interesting to notice how knitting, sewing, weaving, and embroidery have started to appear in my stories. Right now I’m working on a story where one of the characters is able to make magical garments through knitting certain patterns into her work. It is really fun to write about a craft I already have a deep knowledge of.

Books About the Knitting Life

While it is possible to knit and read at the same time with the help of a book stand, I think that audiobooks and knitting are the perfect companions. The books listed below aren’t pattern books—although some of them do contain patterns. These books are narrative stories by, for, and about people who love knitting.

Collected Essays and Memoir:

• Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, edited by Ann Hood — Fabulous essays by incredible authors about their experiences knitting. Authors such as Barbara Kingsolver.

• Knitting Pearls: Writers on Knitting, edited by Ann Hood — More essays by authors who knit or who have stories about knitting.

• A Life in Stitches: Knitting My Way Through Love, Loss, and Laughter, by Rachael Herron — Twenty essays on the knitting life by Rachel Herron, who is a romance author and 911 dispatcher.

• The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow by Krystyna Chiger and Daniel Paisner — A memoir about Krystyna Chiger’s experience as a child in Lviv, Poland (now part of Ukraine). Chiger and her family were forced into the sewers of the city to escape the Nazis. One of Chiger’s prize possessions was the green sweater her grandmother had knitted her, and which she managed to preserve despite her time in the sewer. The green sweater is now on display at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and has been recreated by knitters around the world. Knitters can find a pattern for the green sweater on Ravelry.

• Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater by Peggy Orenstein — Set during the COVID pandemic, lifelong knitter Peggy Orenstein seeks to help herself cope by knitting a sweater from the ground up. She learns to sheer sheep, spin wool, and dye yarn.

• The Yarn Whisperer: My Unexpected Life in Knitting by Clara Parkes — Humorous essays by the knitting author and teacher on a life spent knitting and around knitters.

• Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World by Clara Parkes — More essays by Clara Parks about her adventures traveling the world as the author of a knitting and yarn industry. She visits textile expos and travels to knitting retreats, and contemplates how the knitting world has grown and changed over her many years as a knitter.

Knitting Craft and Spirituality

• Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice by Susan Gordon Lyndon — Susan Gordon Lyndon explores the idea of knitting as a form of prayer, meditation, and a life spent doing crafts as a manifestation of someone’s spiritual path.

• Knitting Heaven and Earth: Healing the Heart with Craft, by Susan Gordon Lyndon — In this follow-up to the Knitting Sutra, Susan Gordon Lyndon explores how the physical and mindful practice of doing crafts can help a person through heartache, grief, and illness.

• Zen and the Art of Knitting: Exploring the Links Between Knitting, Spirituality, and Creativity by Burnadette Murphy — This book explores the spiritual and mindful aspects of knitting, and how it can be a fulfilling form of meditation.

• The Mindfulness in Knitting: Meditations on Craft and Calm by Rachael Matthews — This book contains thoughts and mindfulness meditations to deepen the spiritual experience of the craft.

Novels About Knitters and Knitting

• Knitting: A Novel by Anne Bartlett — Sandra and Martha are two women who seem to be opposites, but they are both suffering from large stores of grief. When they begin to collaborate on a knitting exhibition, they find comfort, friendship, and healing.

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens — Madame Defarge is a knitter and main antagonist in this classic Dickens novel. She would famously sit beside the guillotine during executions, knitting the names of those destined for the chop.

• The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood — A woman loses her child and ends up joining a knitting club where she meets people facing their own grief, trauma, and illness by mindfully making one stitch at a time.

• The Friday Night Knitting club series by Kate Jacobs — This is a women’s fiction series focused on the women who attend a local knitting club. The series follows each of the women as they experience love, careers, motherhood, disease, graceful aging, and reinvention.

• The Blossom Street series by Debbie Macomber — This ten-book series focuses on the women who attend Seattle’s Blossom Street knitting shop as they seek friendship, comfort, self-actualization, and romance.

• Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club series by Gil McNeil — Jo Mackenzie is a newly widowed and single mother of two boys who moves to the English seaside to take over her Gran’s knitting shop. Jo finds friendship, camaraderie, and plenty to gossip about with the local knitters club.

Romance Novels Featuring Knitters

• Real Men Knit series by Kwana Jackson — A romance series focusing on the Strong brothers who have inherited a Harlem yarn and knitting shop from their mother. These four brothers break racial and gender stereotypes by keeping their mother’s memory and legacy alive through running her knitting shop. This is a relatively new series with only two books in it so far, but hopefully there is more to come.

• Knitting in the City series by Penny Reid — This seven-book romance series follows a group of friends who have a weekly knitting club. The friends gossip and commiserate as each lady pursues her happily ever after.

Cozy and Paranormal Mysteries with Gumshoe Knitters

• The Miss Marple series Agatha Christy – This series of crime novels and short stories features Miss Marple, an amateur consulting detective who has developed a keen understanding of human nature after having spent many hours knitting and people-watching.

• Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery series by Molly MacRae — This six-book paranormal mystery series follows Kath, who inherits her grandmother’s yarn shop in Blue Plum, Tennessee. These stories feature ghosts and the paranormal.

• Knitting Mysteries series by Maggie Sefton — This sixteen-book mystery series follows Kelly and the rest of the gang at the House of Lamb knitting club in Colorado as they solve mysteries large and small in their home town of Fort Connor.

• The Vampire Knitting Club series by Nancy Warren — This fifteen-book paranormal mystery series features American-raised Lucy Swift who moves to Oxford England to take over her Gran’s knitting shop. Little does she know, but her basement is the home of a group of late-night knitting vampires who pass the centuries knitting sweaters and baby booties. Lucy soon discovers that Oxford is filled with paranormal activity, mystery, and murder.

In Conclusion

It has been an absolute delight to discover there are so many wonderful books about knitting and knitters. I’m sure there are hundreds of more books that feature knitting that I haven’t had the space to mention, but these are just the ones I was able to find through my local library. I could spend multiple years only reading books about knitters. How wonderful!

While I haven’t had a chance to read all of these yet, it has certainly been a wonderful surprise to discover how many other people enjoy knitting enough to write about it—and even build whole careers writing about it.

If you know an avid knitter, or if your local knitting club is thinking about sharing books, please consider sharing this list!

E. S. O. Martin is a novelist, short story writer, and avid knitter. She blogs about books and Slavic folklore at esomartin.com. Consider signing up for her email newsletter to receive a free story and receive monthly updates about her works in progress.