Most of us crafters know instinctively that working with yarn, fiber, and cloth makes life better. Believing that handwork is good for our well-being has sparked memes about knitting as “the new yoga” and sold tee shirts that read, “I knit so I don’t stab people.” But feeling good while practicing fiber art is only one of the ways that working with thread adds meaning to life.
As a “passionate knitter and yarn stasher, a comparably dispassionate sewist, a novice embroiderer, and a clumsy crocheter,”...
Most of us crafters know instinctively that working with yarn, fiber, and cloth makes life better. Believing that handwork is good for our well-being has sparked memes about knitting as “the new yoga” and sold tee shirts that read, “I knit so I don’t stab people.” But feeling good while practicing fiber art is only one of the ways that working with thread adds meaning to life.
As a “passionate knitter and yarn stasher, a comparably dispassionate sewist, a novice embroiderer, and a clumsy crocheter,” Nicole Nehrig has experienced this for herself. As a clinical psychologist, she used the tools of her training to examine how women have used needlework to meet their needs and enrich their lives. In stories collected from around the world and through time, she documents how women have stitched their way not only to emotional well being but also self-expression, community, and financial reward in her book, With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories. The book combines narrative nonfiction with observations about the shared experience of making meaning while making cloth.
In our conversation, Nicole discusses how her loves of craft and women’s lives came together to tell the shared story of women’s handwork.
Links
Nicole Nehrig’s website
With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories
Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years
Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez on the Long Thread Podcast
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