How to Start a Knitting Group

Your knitting club will look very different depending on your living situation, your community, and your skill level. Before you even begin to enlist other club members, it's important to assess your situation and come up with a rough idea of what you want your knitting group to look like. Here are some things to consider:

This is the fun part. For my knitting group at work, we settled on "Stitch Circle;" it just sort of rolled off the tongue and, hey, we all sit in a circle, so it just made sense! We also didn't want to discourage stitchers of other flavors, such as crocheters and cross stitchers, away from the group.

If you're a little more bold, try to get creative! There are so many puns you can create with the words "knit," "stitch," "purl," etc., including ones which you typically wouldn't say aloud in polite company (remember your demographics)! A simple Google search for "knitting puns" will give you an array of ideas. You're not limited to puns or anything funny, clever, or creative, either. Sometimes, simpler is better. It's easier to remember (and to name-drop!) knitting club names that are a little more classic and easily identifiable, such as a simple "Knitting Club," "Yarn Club," or "Sunday Night Stitches."

It's okay to not know yet what you want to call your club. If you have a friend or two who has already shown some interest, enlist his or her help with coming up with a club name! You can even ask your non-knitterly friends and family, and repay them for the help with a cozy knit scarf.

This will either be the easiest or the hardest of all the technical details. If you have a home and you live alone, or have family members who don't mind their house being host to regular knitting meetings, you can always offer up a room in your own home for knitters to gather 'round.

If that isn't an option, or you or whoever else you may be starting the group up with would prefer to not inconvenience the rest of the family, things will get a little more difficult. Some options include:

No matter where you choose to hold your meetings, make sure it's consistent. Sometimes, things just happen and you have to cancel or move a meeting every now and again. However, it only spells disaster to have to move your meeting around most or every week. This leaves more room for miscommunication, and you're more likely to frustrate and upset your members if they can never find where you're meeting!

Another great way to keep people coming back is to make the meeting times regular and consistent. Whether you choose to meet weekly, every other week, or even just once a month, make sure that it's always not only at the same place, but at the same time. Keep in mind your group demographics; if your group will be all retirees with no job or daytime obligations to speak of, the middle of the day on a weekday is a viable option. However, if you have working professionals or students attending your meetings, this is less ideal, and you'll want to choose an evening meeting time during the week, or sometime during the day on a weekend.

You can always start with an initial meeting time and then get a poll from your attendees of what times work best from them, and go from there.

The best way to seed your group is with people you already know and love who enjoy knitting. If you're lucky enough to have even one fiber-inclined friend, ask him or her to start the club up with you. Two heads are better than one, and they might even know some other people who enjoy knitting. Then those people may know some other knitters, and before you know it, you'll have a decent-sized group of yarn lovers!


Say hello to Dana (on the left) and myself (right)! Together, we co-founded Stitch Circle. It's much easier to get a knitting group together with at least one friend. This is her teaching me how to crochet!

When you can't get enough members just through word-of-mouth, there are other ways to pull people into your knitting club from the outside. Put together a neat little flyer, for starters, and print out a few copies to post at your local yarn store, craft store, or community center. Be sure to state clearly where you'll meet, what time you'll meet, and the club's intention (to knit together)! Additionally, be sure to provide contact information of yourself or whoever you've appointed to be the club's leader or president so people can get in touch with you if they have any questions.

Another resource that's just waiting to be tapped is the online knitting community. Peruse your favorite knitting Facebook groups (such as the AllFreeKnitting community) or forums, and make a post asking if anyone in your area is interested in meeting weekly to knit together. Give the same details you would give in a flyer, and be sure to answer everyone promptly and respectfully. You'd be surprised how many people would love to join a knitting group, but don't know how to start one on their own!

A final piece of advice: be inclusive. Try not to use gendered terms or insulting rhetoric in your advertisement. You may get some laughs and smiles out of a greeting like "Hello, ladies!", but that kind of language might make male knitters feel unwelcome. Additionally, language such as "NO BEGINNERS ALLOWED!" might make for a more tight-knit (pun intended) community of advanced stitchers, but don't you think you're discouraging beginners from stepping forward and trying to learn with that kind of exclusive language? Try to make people feel welcome, even if you had a specific demographic in mind. As I've mentioned, you may begin to love having that plucky teenager in your group of stitching grandmothers! Variety is the spice of life, and the more diverse your knitter friends are, the more likely they are to help you escape a knitting rut with the unique perspectives they can bring to the table.

Every time you meet, plan to bring some extra yarn and needles to your venue. You never know who may show up and realize they forgot their WIP at home! On the other end of the spectrum, a random person may very well show up with an eagerness and willingness to learn to knit, but doesn't have any of the materials, yet. They're likely to feel right at home and well taken-care of if the materials are right there for them to get their feet wet (as well as a patient instructor and friendly group)!

You're going to want to start off your group as a general place for knitters to get together and work on their individual projects together, but as you get a feel for your members' skill levels and interests, you can start planning fun activities together! These can include, but are not limited to, trips to your local yarn store, knit alongs from your favorite designers (or a pattern you've designed yourself), charity drives, and group lessons to teach each other new techniques. When you keep things interesting (and optional—this is important), people are less likely to drop off like flies and keep coming back for more fun. The knitting group that does activities together stays together!


At Prime Publishing, we're always looking for ways to give back. Try collecting hats, shawls, or mittens for charity at your knitting club!