South Burlington resident Kathy Wilder works on a new “Melt the ICE” red hat. Photo by Sophia Balunek/Sheburne News Kathy Wilder and Anne Morgan were peacefully seated in the Marabella KidSpace at the South Burlington Public Library last Thursday, a knitting needle in each hand, yarn twined through their fingers. Wilder had already gotten to work on a project — a red triangular hat with a braided tassel — by the time the clock struck 2 p.m., when others were due to join the weekly Knit for Your Neighbors group, which gathers people to make and donate handmade pieces for the city’s food shelf and school district. While the group typically steers away from political talk in their knitting circle, the red yarn filling the bags of at least two participants last week spoke for itself. In recent months, the color and design of these red hats has become a form of silent protest for many fiber crafters engaged in a new wave of “craftivism” — the practice of using handmade crafts as a form of political engagement — in opposition to federal immigration policies. People across Chittenden County have been taking up their knitting needles and crochet hooks to join in. The idea originated at a yarn shop in Minneapolis as President Donald Trump’s administration focused its aggressive — and deadly — weekslong immigration crackdown on the Twin Cities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. A yarn shop worker was inspired by the caps worn by Norwegians during the Second World war to signify resistance to the Nazi occupation. They crafted a pattern and posted it to the popular knitting website Ravelry, dubbing the new design “Melt the ICE” hats. The pattern, as of Monday, was being utilized by almost 10,000 people. By last week, Morgan, a South Burlington resident, had already knitted about eight of the red hats and about half a dozen miniature 2-D versions to use as pins. While others in the group joke that Morgan is the “speed knitter,” the pattern is relatively simple. While Morgan and Wilder may not be able to stand out and physically protest, they can at least knit about it. “Well, it’s a protest, for certain, against ICE policies,” Wilder said. “I guess I sort of felt helpless as to how can we make a difference. But if we have to make a statement by wearing a hat, so be it.” Morgan echoed that it’s something they, in their own little way, they can do to raise awareness. Knitting might not always be political, but it is often an act of giving. “I knit things because I want to give them to people out of love,” the organizer of another local knitting group, Knot Knite, Stephanie Calves, said. “You’re giving a project that means something, but you’re also giving the time and effort and creativity that you put into that project.” Many members of Knot Knite, which Calves started in 2021, have also been knitting the red hats. Calves knew she had a network of knitters she could mobilize. Although usually people work on their own projects at Knot Knite, she suggested they make red hats for a February project. People loved the idea. “I come to knitting not with the activism mindset on, but I like crafting and I like having a community and relationships,” Calves said. “I think that is what ultimately creates the opportunity for activism.” Instead of giving the hats away, Knot Knite members are taking a slightly different route: they’re donating their time and supplies and selling the popular hats. All the proceeds are going to a local nonprofit that supports new Americans. The hats from the group are on sale at Must Love Yarn in Shelburne. They’re in a small basket near the front, some with tags that remind buyers they’re handmade: “100% merino wool, machine washable, knit near a dog.” Jennifer Arbuckle, one of the store’s owners, sees the collaboration with Knot Knite in line with the space that she often gives to community crafters and artisans — items by local crafters are on sale throughout the store, as is Vermont-produced yarn. Arbuckle is not just making space for the hats, however. As one of only a few local yarn stores in the area, she has also been trying to keep up with the demand for materials. At one point recently, her store was down to three skeins of red yarn for sale. Arbuckle said her national suppliers are also experiencing shortages, and her local ones are dying as much red as they can. “Here in Vermont, this is a big thing. It’s not just like six people knitting hats,” Arbuckle said. “We have people coming in every single day, saying ‘I saw the pattern and I want to knit a hat,’ and they’re just doing it in their living rooms.” Charlotte resident Ginny Paton is one of those people. She has been knitting for over 30 years and, while she wouldn’t necessarily call herself a “craftivist,” she knows the term well. During the first Trump administration, a similar hat, known as the pink “Pussy Hat” for its resemblance to cat ears, was her initial introduction to the power of knitted attire. Protesters wore the hats during the 2017 Women’s March in Washington D.C. and in front of the Vermont Statehouse. Paton made a few of those at the time and when she saw a new pattern for the red hats showing up on Ravelry, she picked up her knitting needles and got to work. She’s given just under a dozen away to others in her community. “For me, part of this is reclaiming red from the MAGA folks,” Paton said. “This is a way of reclaiming red into the general community. And it’s about what you can do to feel maybe a little less helpless. There’s only so much that an individual person at the community level can do. We rely on people we elect to take care of and reflect the values of the community, and we’re all sort of hamstrung right now.” History behind the hats The history of using crafts to make political statements goes much farther back than any pink or red hats of the last few years. Maura D’Amore is a professor of English and American Studies at St. Michael’s College, teaches a course entitled “The Rhetoric of Craft.” She gave examples of Americans harnessing their domestic skills for political speech as far back as the 19th century. There were white women abolitionists who, in opposition to slavery, stopped buying cotton for their quilts or clothing. There were also the embroidered banners of the suffrage movement or the community AIDS quilt, which, with hand sewn squares, commemorates the lives of over 110,000 people who died because of the AIDS epidemic. Historically, handcrafts, especially labor such as quilting, embroidery, or even knitting, have been associated with women and the home. Without access to other forms of political participation, D’Amore said, women have always turned to what they could control to intervene in the political conversation — including crafting. While the world may not be as strictly gendered as it once was, knitting a hat as protest still fits in this historical throughline. People reach for the forms of speech that they have access to or feel comfortable in. “We all have responses to the fact that the world is burning, right?” D’Amore said. “I could totally see craft as a place where you could use that time making to think about it in concert with other people. And that’s its own form of solidarity and community building.” The red hats are also unlikely to be the end of craftivism projects in the nation or Vermont. Just last week, Morgan from the Knit for Your Neighbors group was getting started on another project known nationally as the Tempestry Project, a knitted piece that visualizes and communicates climate change data in an area over a given period. Simply put, the participants knit different colored strips that, when put together, correspond to a yearly comparison of climate data. Morgan signed on to help with a project through the Middlebury-based Henry Sheldon Museum that focuses on 100 years of Addison County climate data. Last week, she brought a bag full of yarn for her fellow knitters. Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘Craftivism’ makes a comeback as local knitters spin yarns about ICE resistance. ...read more read less