Stitch 'n Bitch

Stitch 'n Bitch is a phrase that has been used to refer to social knitting groups since at least World War II. Before the slang term “Stitch ‘n Bitch” was used, groups of women in the 1940s would join to knit and talk in organized “Stitch and Bitch clubs. The term was further used in the 1980s as part of the book Social History of American knitting by Anne Macdonald. It is in 2003 that Stitch 'n Bitch: The Knitters Handbook was published as the first in a series of best-selling instructional books on knitting and crochet all titled with the phrase Stitch 'n Bitch. It is as a result to the success of the books that the modern day knitting groups known as Stitch ‘n Bitch, have emerged in cities around the world. The groups, mainly women, meet to knit, stitch and talk. Nowadays, the groups have been analysed by scholars as expressions of resistance to major political, social and technological change in Western societies. Furthermore, the term Stitch ‘n Bitch is now used by women from across the globe to connect with others in the virtual space seeing as the term has re-emerged in a world where the public sphere is the cyberspace.

With over 1460 groups registered Stitch ‘n Bitch groups in 289 cities worldwide, the social knitting movement has demarked itself as a popular social gathering for avid knitters.