Crochet as Therapy in Academic Research

Or how my own lived experience ultimately made me a reference-able expert in a developing niche ...

Have you ever searched yourself on Google Scholar to see if your work has been cited in academic publications? The work I am most proud of that has been cited is all related to the mental and physical health benefits of crochet. When I first started researching this topic over a decade ago, no one was really talking about it. Since then, it’s become practically common knowledge that crochet heals. I’m thrilled to have played a part in opening up that conversation.

Here’s a roundup of some of those articles:

Mindful Stitch: Generating dialogue in and around the threads of wellbeing, Swinnerton

As far as I can tell, the only peer-reviewed journal my work is mentioned in is this one:

In this article, author Swinnerton mentions:

• A blog post I wrote for Lion Brand on Crochet as Meditation.

• My recommendations to choose a beginner project with a repetitive stitch pattern, colors that are comforting and a quiet relaxed craft space.

• This specific quote:

“The combination of constantly counting, gentle recurrent hand motions and focus on the work is a stress reducer and a path to being present in the here-and-now.”

Crafting Textile Connections: A mixed-methods approach to explore traditional and e-textile crafting for wellbeing by Sara Nevay, Lucy Robertson, Christopher S.C. Lim & Wendy Moncur

Unspun heroes: an example of intergenerational learning and community action by Kathy Snow and Janice Tulk

The Slow Fashion Renaissance: an in-depth exploration of crochet and knitting as sustainable technologies for contemporary fashion by Jie Peng

Sources:

Swinnerton, E. L., (2015) “Mindful Stitch: Generating dialogue in and around the threads of wellbeing”, Fields: journal of Huddersfield student research 1(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.5920/fields.2015.113

Sara Nevay, Lucy Robertson, Christopher S.C. Lim & Wendy Moncur (2019) Crafting Textile Connections: A mixed-methods approach to explore traditional and e-textile crafting for wellbeing, The Design Journal, 22:sup1, 487-501, DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2019.1595434

Snow, K., & Tulk, J. (2020). Unspun Heroes: An Example of Intergenerational Learning and Community Action. Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, 32(1). Retrieved from https://cjsae.library.dal.ca/cjsae/article/view/5495

Peng, Jie. "The Slow Fashion Renaissance: an in-depth exploration of crochet and knitting as sustainable technologies for contemporary fashion." (2023).