Corinna Palanca-Wessels sits at the dining table of Stacey Kramer’s apartment in Pioneer Square. Pulling out a brownish-maroon colored mass of yarn that will soon be a sock, she is surrounded by eight other women, also in their 30s, all reaching into their bags for various in-progress projects like sweaters, stuffed animals and scarves.

A row of yarn at Weaving Works, a fixture in the University District for 31 years.

Photo: Jason Siegel

Almost like a sacred ritual, the eight women each stretch out an arm’s length of yarn in complete silence before picking up their knitting sticks and beginning to stitch. Dishes of macaroons oozing with melted mini chocolate chips, light-as-air buttery scones and creamy-rich quiches are set in the center of the table among the piles of yarn and knitting patterns. Delicate tinkling noises from the metal sticks combined with the dull thuds from yarn balls rolling off the table onto the carpet create a barely audible symphony.

Some of the women chant under their breath, counting each stitch of a row as they slowly lull themselves into a knitting rhythm. Eventually, layers of conversation begin to fill the room, pushing the actual act of knitting into the background.

“Do you think they make designer scrubs? You know, like medical scrubs? I’ve been wanting to get myself some for work. Maybe I should make some. . . . ”

“So, um, I had a friend of mine – she does astrology, right? – I had her do my astrology. So, you know, I’m a Capricorn, right? But then my moon sign is Leo and then my rival sign is Libra. . . . ”

“Mmm, this scone is so light, but I don’t want to even think about how much butter was used to make it this light. . . . ”

A woman at the end of the table holds up a half-finished yellow sweater and squints her eyes, assessing the edge of the sweater. “I can’t cast on correctly,” she says. “There are large holes throughout the beginning rows.”

A knitting circle of undergraduates at the University of Washington Hillel, a center for Jewish students and young adults.

Photo: Jason Siegel

Everyone stops their separate conversations and looks over at the sweater, their attention drawn back to the task at hand.

“Oh, but it makes the edge look all lace-like,” Palanca-Wessels comments while her hands continue to manipulate the knitting sticks. “It looks very pretty.”

The others nod and murmur in agreement.

The woman looks at the sweater again. “But it’s supposed to be a boy’s sweater.”

The knitting circle meets once a month, each time at someone else’s house, to knit together – not to mention eat pastries together, discuss work and family life, and think up entrepreneurial business ventures involving knitting and other crafts. The group is made up of both beginning and advanced knitters.

“I knit because it’s relaxing,” says Palanca-Wessels. “Sometimes I’d knit when I was on-call at the hospital (as a doctor), during breaks or while at conferences and lectures. It’s also an excuse to just get together with friends to hang out and talk.”

Considered the essential guide for beginner knitters, Debbie Stoller’s “Stitch ‘N Bitch,” published in 2003, officially cemented the current knitting popularity across the country. Stoller is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the feminist magazine Bust, and established the first Stitch ‘N Bitch knitting group in New York City.

Josh Speer, a UW senior, knits a Technicolor scarf

Photo: Jason Siegel

“Whenever I’d tell people about my latest (knitting) obsession, I’d invariably get one of two responses,” Stoller writes in her book. “The first, ‘Can you teach me, too?’ was a common and welcome reply. But other friends responded with ‘Really?’ or ‘How interesting,’ both spoken with an air of disbelief, even a touch of disdain. Soon it occurred to me that if I had told these folks that I’d been playing soccer, or learning karate, or taken up carpentry, they most likely would have said ‘Cool,’ because a girl doing a traditionally male activity – now, that’s feminist, right? But a girl doing a traditionally female activity – let alone one as frivolous and time-wasting as knitting – well, what were they to make of that?”

Determined to “take back the knit,” as Stoller put it, she launched her book in the hope of raising the hobby’s visibility and value in today’s culture. She met resounding success, attracting 4 million newcomers with her catchy-named chapters like “Oops, I Knit It Again” and various knitting patterns such as the “ribbed-for-her-pleasure scarf.”

With knitting now seen as hip, community Stitch ‘N Bitch groups have popped up in local cafes and bars nationwide, using Stoller’s book as a guide. There are nine Seattle Stitch ‘N Bitch groups listed on the official Stitch ‘N Bitch Web site. They include the PurlyGirls, who met at El Diablo Coffee Company on Queen Anne, and the Capitol Hill Stitchy Bitches, who meet at Red Line cafe. This number doesn’t include the numerous private knitting groups who meet at each other’s homes.

As of 2000, there were 38 million knitters nationwide, according to a survey by the Craft Yarn Council of America, the national yarn industry’s trade association based in Gastonia, N.C. By 2004, the figure rose to 53 million, a 51 percent increase over the previous 10 years. Some of these knitting newbies are Hollywood celebrities and models such as Julia Roberts, Madonna and Tyra Banks. However, the majority of new knitters are young female college students and professionals. The percentage of women under age 45 who knit or crochet has doubled since 1996.

Stoller writes that there are several reasons why knitting has become a national pastime. Some women, like herself, want to reclaim what has been called the “lost domestic arts.” Other women, she writes, “are more interested in freeing themselves from a dependence on what they see as an exploitative corporate culture.” Still others may see knitting as a cost-efficient way to make fashionable items.

What about men? Because knitting has historically been seen as a gendered activity, Stoller writes, she found that it was difficult to get men interested in joining the knitting craze when she first started her Stitch ‘N Bitch group:

“[Knitting] was such a girly thing to do, in fact, that even a few of the flamboyantly gay men I knew – men who would have no qualms about, say, walking down the street dressed as Carmen Miranda – admitted to me that they were too embarrassed to knit in public.”

Tanya Crenovich works at Weaving Works, a local yarn shop in the University District that has been in business for 31 years. She is surrounded by baskets and cubby shelves brimming with yarns – skeins of pearl white soy silk, maroon cashmere yarn balls and gray wads of pure fleece wool. A toddler in a knitted sweater runs laps through the narrow aisles of yarn, stopping only to lay his head on a pile of multicolored alpaca silk. His nap only lasts for a second before he resumes his one-man race, tufts of hair sticking up on the side of his head.

The Seattle Knitters Guild recommends 51 yarn shops.

Photo: Jason Siegel

At the cash register, Crenovich calls for the next person in line. A tall man steps up to the counter, his leather jacket squeaking as he moves. He looks as if he could fit in the mosh pit of a metal concert. A metal wallet chain hanging out of his denim pocket taps the glass counter as he sets down five bundles of canary yellow yarn.

“Hi, I was wondering if you could see how many more skeins you have of this yarn?” he asks. His fingers are spread out on top of the stack, revealing jet-black ink designs tattooed on the back of his hands.

Crenovich pulls out a binder filled with lists and informs him they have only three left.

“Oh, that won’t be enough,” the man says. He heads towards the back of the store to hunt for a different kind of yarn.

Crenovich, a 13-year employee, says she has noticed that more men have up knitting in the last few years. She believes many women who have recently taken up the hobby often teach their husbands and boyfriends how to knit. Also, high schools like Garfield High School in Seattle have fiber art classes that expose male students to the craft.

“I think knitting is now less sex-specific than it used to be,” Crenovich says.

Knitting has also started to make its way into male-dominated sports, particularly baseball. On July 28, 2005, the Seattle Mariners hosted “Stitch ‘N Pitch Night” at Safeco Field. More than 1,600 baseball fans, both men and women, brought their knitting needles and balls of yarn to the game. Although no Mariner player was seen knitting in the dugout, Mariner’s pitcher Ryan Franklin, 45, told the Seattle Times that years ago his grandma Edna once tried to coach him.

“I didn’t have the patience,” Franklin was quoted as saying. “But now, if I tried it, I think I might like it.”

Back at Kramer’s apartment, the eight women have been knitting, chatting and snacking for three hours straight. They are surprised to find the sky rapidly darkening outside, a signal to the group that it’s about time to quit for the night. The women schedule their next meeting, then divvy up the remaining pastries on the table. One by one the women drift toward the apartment door, their still unfinished projects in hand. The only one left at the table is Palanca-Wessels, who concentrates on her knitting as if in a trance.

“Let me just finish this row and then I’ll be done with this thing,” Palanca-Wessels laughs to the others. In her hands, the once indefinable wad of yarn has taken the shape of a durable sock.

For knitting circle member Clara Chan, the hobby represents neither a lost domestic art nor an attempt to wrest free of corporate culture. It is simply, as she says, “something mindless I can do when I’m doing other things. It makes me feel more productive. It’s also kind of nice to make something and then be able to use it – and watch (her husband) John wear it.” Her husband adds, jokingly, “I like knitting because it’s a good way to get Clara out of the house so I can watch football.”