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In Lower Hutt, Tash Barneveld has watched the shift play out from behind the counter of her yarn shop. The granddaughter of renowned hand-spinning and knitting expert Margaret Stove – who once knitted a shawl for Prince William – Barneveld first opened Holland Road Yarn Company in 2011, closed it five years ago, and reopened in May.
She recalls how handful-sized classes once struggled to fill. “But now, classes are above and beyond, like one of our most popular things that sell out constantly.”
The surge has prompted Barneveld to expand into embroidery and weaving. The shop also hosts a sofa-style “safe space”, where people arrive with projects and linger for the company as much as the craft.
Holland Road Yarn Company’s Tash Barneveld.
Supplied / Ebony Lamb Photography
“I think it’s in response to the fact that our lives have become so digital … people want to find something that is much more tangible and [where] you can see yourself progress,” she says.
“People are coming back to thinking, ‘actually, I can be really creative in my own terms in a way that isn’t necessarily something that has to be shared on social media’.”
The gatherings have also revived an older tradition: craftivism, the use of hand-making as a form of protest.
“I find there’s a tricky balance with creating a safe space for people and wanting to have conversations about what’s going on in the world, but not everyone who is present will be in a good headspace to have hard conversations about like Minneapolis and things.
“So, I thought if we had a dedicated time and place for that, we can come and do charity knitting or make handmade banners or write submissions or just have a place that you know that you can come and talk about world issues.”
Pottering around from social media to markets
Luni Pottery’s Sam Peterson quit her job to sell her own handmade products.
Supplied / Sam Peterson
That hunger for hands-on making surfaces again in Papakura, where 27-year-old Sam Peterson runs Luni Pottery. After leaving a job she found unfulfilling, Peterson began selling embroidery and crochet at markets. During lockdown, she fell in love with pottery, using leftover clay from her mum and a wheel gifted by neighbours.
Instagram pottery creators boomed during that time, she says, but the interest has since spilled into real life.
Luni Pottery’s Sam Peterson sells a range of handmade mugs and saucers, including ones with a 24k gold painted rims.
Supplied / Sam Peterson
“At nearly every single market, someone will ask me: ‘Oh, do you do classes?’ And I’ll say ‘no’, and they’ll be like, ‘oh, when you do, can you let me know sort of thing?’
“At markets, I’ve had people show me their photos of the little things that they’ve made at pottery class and I’m like, oh, it’s so sweet! I love to see it.”
Many of those class-takers describe pottery as calming – something Peterson attributes to the steady pressure of hands shaping clay.
A snapshot of time
A sample of Kate Steven’s junk journalling hobby she posts about on social media.
Supplied / Kate Stevens
In Hawke’s Bay, a different kind of making has drawn people together. Former midwife Kate Stevens has built a thriving community around junk journalling, a craft that blends memory-keeping with collage using repurposed materials.
With 13,000 Instagram followers, Stevens launched the Facebook group The Junk Journal Collective NZ to encourage people to meet after followers said they felt alone in the hobby. It has since grown to more than 400 members.
“I have made a lot of great friendships through this, but they’re online and I miss that person to person collaboration that you get when you’re actually with someone in a room creating and you’re bouncing ideas off each other and the friendships that are created through that.”
Kate Stevens is encouraging fellow NZ-based junk journallers to meet up via her Facebook group.
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That longing led Stevens to organise a craft retreat this May. She also runs a “Happy Mail” initiative, where members randomly send handmade cards or surplus supplies – a nostalgic antidote to stressful days. Many turn to journalling during grief or anxiety, or as a brief reprieve from caregiving, she says.
“Someone did say that these [analogue hobbies] have never stopped … But in this world now that we live in, people are actually seeking them out because they want to step away from this world that we’ve created that is so online, so digital, and so sort of impersonal in a way.”
The appeal lies partly in imperfection. Members treasure the marks of use – fragments of everyday life pressed onto paper, preserved and potentially passed down.
“The little stain on an old piece of lace or the little crumpled piece of paper that’s folded over the photo – to us, those imperfections create a beauty and an authenticity that we love.”
Hobbies, not hustles
Melissa Wastney with a sample of her craft work.
Supplied / Melissa Wastney
That imperfect sensibility resonates with Wellington-based crafter Melissa Wastney, a full-time office worker who teaches cross-stitching, belongs to a few hobby groups and occasionally sells her work. She describes these hobbies as a “slow burn” – a counterweight to the pace of her week.
“While I think of it as something quite separate to my work, it’s also something that brings me together with some of my workmates.
“It turns out lots of us have analogue hobbies and we’ve kind of taken those things offline and done them together in the weekends as well. Yeah, it’s been a great way to kind of build extra friendships through work as well.”
Ger Tew’s The ReCreators’ upcycling workshops offers woodworking classes, which have proved very popular with people for making chopping boards.
Supplied
The emphasis on connection over mastery runs through many of these spaces. Auckland social enterprise The ReCreators has been running upcycling workshops since 2018, evolving from garage woodworking classes into studios in Tāmaki Makaurau and Waikato, as well as a mobile unit. Founder Ger Tew estimates about 10,000 people participate each year in workshops ranging from crochet and sewing to embroidery.
She links the appeal to “flow state” – repetitive, immersive activities that absorb attention and quiet the mind.
“We have to remember that our brains haven’t been designed for these very quick hits [online], and the speeds that we’re moving into … and actually what we desperately need is to slow things right down.”
The ReCreators founder Ger Tew.
Supplied / Carissa Hine
Connections in a divisive world
On Auckland’s North Shore, Raft Studios was born during Covid to offer precisely that slowdown. Its founder, Jen van der Woerd – formerly in fashion and kitchen design – opened the space to escape the digital grind. Today, the studio hosts weekly classes and informal gatherings for knitting, crochet, weaving, painting, sketching and mixed media. She hopes to one day open a hobby craft café.
“People don’t really come to us, I suppose, to learn specific art because we do teach on a really casual basis. We’re not artists in general. We’re hobbyists, I suppose. So they do more come for the connections.”
Raft Studios founder Jen van der Woerd.
Supplied / K Servian
While early attendees skewed toward retired women, younger people now fill crochet sessions. Van der Woerd attributes the shift to gift-making, portability and the appeal of a hobby that doesn’t require screens or Wi-Fi. Cost-of-living pressures have also shaped demand, with pencil sketching booming in the past year.
“We can’t all go out and do expensive hobbies because our cost of living has like gone crazy. So being able to just grab a piece of paper and a pencil is so easy.”
Raft Studios founder Jen van der Woerd.
Supplied / K Servian
Across these spaces, Holland Road Yarn Company’s Barneveld sees they’re tied by a desire for social cohesion, formed away from screens and the frictions of an increasingly divisive world.
“If you’re in a space where people are just enjoying the same thing, you’re not necessarily going to know that you have totally different politics than the person sitting next to you, but you’re still connecting with them.
“So I think there’s that element of empathy and understanding other people’s life stories and where they come from and why they believe the things they believe that we can generate from being in those spaces and participating in analogue hobbies.”
