METHODOLOGY

 Qualitative – observations and focus group

 Village Yarn and Tea Shop
 Gifted Hands
 Yarn Garden (focus group)
 Church of the Holy Stitch
 Hearts and Hands

 Quantitative – questionnaire
 16 respondents

Lushlee.com
 Observations Focus Group
•9 observations conducted •5 participants questioned at
encompassing 50 knitters. the Girl’s Night Out at the
All Yarn Garden in Gig Harbor,
were women. WA. Interviewees ranged in
age from 20-65. Again, all
•Village Yarn and Tea Shop women.
•Church of the Holy Stitch
•Gifted Hands Yarn
Garden
•Hearts and Hands

Church of the Holy

Stitch
DISCUSSION TOPICS
•Upon realizing an information need, knitters
overwhelmingly (69%) chose to seek assistance from
friends, relatives, or other non-professional knitters.

•During the course of conversation, several alternative

sources for knitting information were suggested among
knitters.
•YouTube “How To” videos
•Ravelry.com
•Facebook “friend” advice
•Pattern books or magazines
•Libraries, bookstores, Amazon.com
•Email lists, blogs, bulletins

•This advise is especially interesting if you consider that it

even came first from a friend, relative, or non-professional
knitter’s.
 Anomalies & Areas for
Further Study
•Surprisingly, the WA Women’s Correctional Facility knitting group,
Hearts and Hands, did not fit Chatman’s small world as expected.

•The inmates seemed to overcome information poverty. They

were openly seeking advice about knitting and aspects of their
lives inside and outside the prison.

•They were trusting and friendly with the volunteers who ran the
knitting group. Didn’t feel like they had “outsider” or, “us” and
“them” issues despite geospaciallity.

•They happily gave others in their social network advice about

prison rehabilitation programs and, above all, knitting.

•They did have a limited number of roles and shared a common life
situation.
 Questionnaire Respondents
•Questionnaire was administered in person or online to 16 volunteers.
•10 multiple choice questions were asked.
•2 open-ended questions were asked.
•11 statements were evaluated by participants using a 5-point
Likert-type scale.
•Totaling 23 questions

•Respondents were 87% female

•and 12.5% male.

•62.5% of those polled were between the

ages of 30 and 39. No questionnaire
participants were between the ages
of 50-69
Paid workers described their
professions as:
When asked where they prefer to get crafting information from, 75% of
participants responded that they prefer to search for information “in
person from people I know (non-professional yarn crafters).” 68% like
crafting information from online websites.
 Further Findings…
•When asked if they prefer to craft alone or in groups, 75% of
respondents like to do both. 56.25% say they have met with a group
more than once, but not regularly.

•56% of yarn crafters share information about knitting with other

crafters more than once a month.

•43.75% of those polled said that professional knitting resources are

not the most helpful.
 An Interesting Finding
•62.5% of knitters are sometimes willing to pay for knitting
information. This supports their earlier claim that the best resources
are trusted and accurate (56.25%). Furthermore, 68% prefer online
resources and 37.5% always go the internet first when they need
help solving a problem.

•However, the numbers show that half of knitters (50%) make use of
more than one resource when solving an information need. Based
on the fact that 75% prefer to ask other knitters for help solving an
information need, and 50% reported they nearly always ask others
for help, we may conclude that:

•There is a fairly even split between use of online resources to fulfill

an information need and in-person resources to fill an information
need.
 Points to Ponder
• Observations took place in a number of settings and groups.
Compare and contrast the findings in different observational
settings.

• Do you think the knitting group we observed in the WA Correctional

Facility for Women fit into Chatman’s Small World?

• If 75% of knitters prefer to get information in-person from friends,

and 68% prefer information from on-line websites, what does that
suggest about the nature of preferred information? Do yarn crafters
prefer formal or informal information? Do they prefer quick,
accurate and trusted, or easily accessible information?

• Do you think the age demographic (nearly all questionnaire

respondents under the age of 50) has anything to do with our
knitters preferring both online and in-person resources? Do you
think anything will change as older generations disappear?