Eat, Drink, Stitch, Bitch

For the Stitch and Bitch knitting club, it’s just another typical night at Redline, complete with subdued mood lighting, cozy vinyl booths and, of course, free-flowing drinky-drinks. Since last spring, anywhere from three to 12 knitters have been gathering every Wednesday evening at the back of the bar for eats, drinks, good company and great stitching. After a brief summer hiatus, the Stitch and Bitch army is back, armed with circular needles, patterns galore and a glass or two of the choicest poisons.

“They’ll have one or two beers and that’s it,” says Redline waitress Carmel Cooke, “just enough to have a little giggle.” The girls may not be at Redline for a raucous night out, but they certainly collect their fair share of interest from fellow barflies. “At first everybody thought it was a little strange: knitting and drinking,” says Cooke, who has been serving the ladies since the gatherings began. “But then we all really started to like the ladies.”

And the feeling is mutual. Stitch and Bitch seems to have found a perfect home at Redline. The club is actually the brain child of Redline publicist and avid knitter Margo Fogelberg, who placed an ad in the Improper Bostonian. Now under the watch of Veronica McNulty, the stitchers and bitchers praise Redline for its food and service. But McNulty says Redline’s main attraction is its convenient location next door to yarn shop Woolcott & Co. “If you forget something, you can just go and get it,” she says.

Talk of movies, books and boyfriends keeps the interaction casual and lighthearted. “We know about each other’s lives, but not our histories,” says McNulty. And despite bearing a shocking resemblance to the terminology of wrestling technique—think front cross, back twist and triple twisted rib—knitting jargon remains the common currency of the mild-mannered Stitch and Bitch community.

Niki Bronstein, owner of Woolcott & Co. and occasional participant, believes that Stitch and Bitch provides the ideal learning environment. “You see people who started to learn last year coming to help others,” says participant and Woolcott & Co. employee Jessica Marcus. “It’s like passing down Nana’s chocolate cake recipe,” she says.

But Redline is no kitchen nook, and Stitch and Bitch is certainly not your grandma’s knitting circle. The club welcomes a wide range of participants, from 20-year-olds to retirees. But despite the inter-generational mix, Marcus notes a definite skew toward “young urban professionals.” Hence Redline as ideal gathering spot—after all, where better for said young urban professionals to relax than at a bar with drink in hand. “A lot of people in the high tech industry have learned to relax by going to bars,” Marcus says, “and this is an extension of that culture.”

Indeed, the interest in knitting—and arts and crafts in general—seems like a growing trend. Marcus notes that even stores like Urban Outfitters are now touting knitting manuals tailor-made for Gevneration X. “So many of us work in industries in which you produce things you can’t really touch. Creating something that will last—we crave that,” she says. McNulty is less philosophical, viewing knitting as just a convenient hobby. “As far as arts and crafts go, knitting is very portable, and involves creativity and technique,” she says. Whatever the future holds for knitting as sociological phenomenon, it’s clear that the weekly sessions of stitching and bitching on JFK Street are here to stay.