BGKC 2019

Another Year for the Books.

Having launched in early 2019 Black Girl Knit Club have been able to work on some incredible projects in our community and engage with empowering companies; however our aim has always been to highlight and change the narrative for people of colour in craft. Here are some of our findings that we thought are key to our ethos.

Black Girl Knit Club have been able to gather facts and information on the subject of diversity-

According to ONS Annual Population Survey 2018, Black and minority ethnic individuals only account for 24% of London’s creative and cultural industries. Less than half of this percentage are represented by Women.

Here are more findings from credible sources:

Diversknitty has become a symbol of the quest to raise awareness of the problems that are all around us, whether you experience racial discrimination personally or not. We talk about racism in the knitting community, but as anyone who has ever encountered it will tell you, it is not confined to the knitting community alone. - Nathan Taylor AKA Sockmatician

Lorna Hamilton Brown @lhamiltonbrown a knitwear designer and keen advocate of black women’s rights in the knitting industry. She created the #blackpeopledoknit and has always been an avid researcher. Read her dissertation here as she delves into the examples of Black people knitting through history, to dispel the myths that black people do knit!

97%

Of attendees for BGKC were black females

We celebrate knitwear designers of colour who are backed by initiatives such as BIPOC in FIBER

#DIVERSKNITTY #blackpeopledoknit

BIPOC in Fiber is the new name for the POC Designers & Crafters list created by black British knitwear designer Jeanette Sloan in August 2018.

Jeanette started the list while researching the article Black People Do Knit (published in Knitting Magazine, November 2018), picking up on the #diversknitty and #blackpeopledoknit hashtags on Instagram under which the lack of diversity in the knitting community was already being discussed. Jeanette’s article and the dialogue gaining momentum on social media discussed the lack of BIPOC representation, and also the much less palatable issue of racism within the community. These ongoing conversations are important because they signal a change in the fibre community where the talent and work of BIPOC is finally being recognised.

The aim of BIPOC in Fiber is to become a vital, interactive resource that will increase the profiles of all the BIPOC makers listed and show the true diversity that exists in our community.