Knitting’s ‘cool and funky little sister’: national crochet conference attracts the young

Violet Ayrey, 12, was crocheting a hexagon to make a cardigan when she realised she’d made a terrible mistake.

“When it got really big, I saw it was a pentagon. I’d missed a corner,” she says.

“I was going to take it apart but Mum said ‘you worked so hard on it’… so I thought I’d just make it into a shirt.”

On Friday, Ayrey paired her creation with a matching skirt and headband and took out the Fashions on the Field event at the three-day national crochet conference in Sydney.

People hooked on crocheting gathered at the conference to yarn about granny squares and compare patterns in the latest wave of the grannycore trend.

Conference organiser Samantha MacNally describes crocheting as knitting’s “cool and funky little sister”.

“But most of us are bi-stitchual anyway and adore both crafts,” she says.

While knitting uses a pair of long needles to form loops that are held on the needles, crocheting uses a single hook to join loops directly on to the piece. According to domestic guru Martha Stewart, crocheting is the easier craft.

Related: A shopping guide to … getting hooked on crochet

“Well, she hasn’t tried one of my patterns,” Shelley Husband jokes.

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Husband is a crocheter specialising in granny squares, the versatile tiles many people would picture when they think about crocheting. She’s published eight books on the subject and travels the country teaching others how to do it.

There’s another difference between knitting and crochet, according to MacNally. Knitting can be done by machine, while crocheting can only ever be done by hand.

By the mid-1800s, crochet – from the French for “hook” – had moved beyond being a purely practical clothing craft as people started making tobacco pouches, bird-cage covers, antimacassars and lampshades.

Since then, the grannycore craft has enjoyed various bursts of popularity, both in the 60s and 70s – and now. Colourful crochet pieces are perfect for social media and people have taken to using ChatGPT to make designs.

Heidi Klum was recently spotted in a crochet dress in France, while a host of It girls have been bravely sporting crochet bikinis. Reality TV star Kylie Jenner loves a see-through crochet dress, singer Justin Bieber went on a date cloaked in a giant crochet blanket and model Bella Hadid has rocked crochet for years.

Related: Crochet enthusiasts asked ChatGPT for patterns. The results are ‘cursed’

When Hamish Macdonald, Walkley award winner, author and hardened political reporter, talked about crocheting on the ABC’s Radio National on Friday, he said the phone lines lit up. One caller took issue with him suggesting crochet could be “ugly”.

In May, Cosmos Magazine reported on Blossom, a 3D-printable robot cloaked in crochet skin to look like a little animal. Cornell University’s Guy Hoffman, who worked on the Blossom project, says they wanted to create a robot using soft, warm materials instead of plastic and metal.

And in a 2020 University of Wollongong international study on “the effects of crochet on wellbeing”, which surveyed 8,391 people – nine in 10 said crochet made them feel calmer and eight in 10 said it made them happier.

More than 99% of the respondents were female. About 15% were over 60, half were aged between 40 and 60 and about a third were younger than 40.

Husband designs granny squares but says the “granny” part is not accurate.

“We’re breaking down the perception of what it is,” she says. “We have people of all ages.”

Ayrey’s grandmother taught her how to crochet – now the Fashions on the Field winner practises every day.

And what do her friends think about this homey, wholesome, needlework hobby?

“I crocheted them some turtles … and they just really like them. And I make bags,” she says.

“My teacher is also a crocheter so I crochet in class when I’m watching something … She said she’ll start a crochet class for me.

“I’ll get to teach my friends how to crochet.”