On July 21st, NPR’s Marketplace aired a story about the decline of knitting, as marked by the closure of knitting stores. The blow-back has been both ferocious and predictable, from Ravelry threads to comments on the article itself.
Naturally, it’s a mistake to correlate “yarn purchase rate” with “interest in knitting.” Most knitters have more yarn than they need for the project at hand.
Buying yarn often becomes a hobby in and of itself. This eventually leads to SABLE, a state so common that it’s been given its own acronym. (“Stash Amassed Beyond Life Expectancy.” Even if the knitter stopped buying yarn today, at their average knitting rate, they would not be able to knit the entire stash before they died.)
The “knit from your stash” trend is definitely on the rise. (Let’s face it: collectively, we’ve spent too much money on yarn.) With the economy and general belt-tightening, I think it’s reasonable to predict that yarn sales will slowly decline. Call it a “market correction.”
The most baffling statement made by the Marketplace article has to be “the [knitting] fad has passed, because those still in the market for needles and yarn are buying most of their wares online.”
That doesn’t mean that the fad has passed. It… means that knitters are buying yarn online.
Do you have actual, researched stats on the success/failure/open/close rate of physical yarn stores? Send us a tip!
