Logging Off and Casting On: Hobart’s Most Wholesome Monday Night Gathering
BY FRANCES ROBERTS
Every second Monday night, something wholesome is happening at a North Hobart pub. Between the pints and the chatter, a group of people aged anywhere from 17 to 70(-ish) sit together, working with their hands. This is PubKnit, a fortnightly knitting club, and it’s every bit as feel-good as it sounds.
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PubKnit Hobart (image supplied)
PubKnit was founded in 2024 by Em, a UX designer at Procreate who moved to Hobart from Sydney. At that time, Tasmania had a few knitting groups, but the meeting times weren’t always ideal for those of - ahem - working age. And while Em jokes that many Hobart knitters treat anything “over the bridge” as too far away, even she had to admit that the Knitting and Crocheting group in Nubeena was a little out of reach - mainland standards notwithstanding.
So she did what any resourceful person does when the thing they need doesn’t exist: she made it herself. One comment in the Knitting and Crochet Tasmania Facebook group was enough to attract fifty replies from people wanting exactly the same thing. Em booked a date, found a venue, and PubKnit was born.
What's striking about PubKnit is not just that it exists, but how it exists. There's no dedicated social media page, no Eventbrite, and no posters in cafés. It has grown almost entirely by word of mouth - which, in Hobart, turns out to be more than sufficient. One attendee heard about it from a girl she met at the beach. A wool-store staff member mentioned it to a customer. Four attendees gradually became twenty.
This is, in many ways, a very Tasmanian story. As local knitter and PubKnit regular Vee puts it: "When chatting, we find that we know the same people - friends, family, coworkers - and it creates a fun and chatty environment." Before you know it, you’ve ascertained that Jane’s son lives four houses up the road, and someone's sharing the kind of peculiar local trivia that makes you feel immediately at home. Did you know that randoms have been trying to jump in the back of TasWater vehicles at the traffic lights?
Conversational tangents like this aside, what makes PubKnit really special is its mix of generations. In a time when social groups are often segregated by age, it's not every day that teenagers, retirees and everyone in between voluntarily spend an evening together. While younger people may be discovering knitting and other analogue hobbies for the first time, many of the skills, traditions and practical knowledge that keep these crafts alive have been carried forward by older generations - the kind of knitters whose needles barely seem to move before a cable-knit sleeve materialises. At PubKnit, techniques, tips and stories are exchanged freely over ciders and baskets of tempura mushrooms.
The group’s no-fuss, (mostly) offline existence is also part of a broader shift away from constant digital engagement. In an era of algorithm-curated feeds, AI-slop, and a particular type of brain-fog derived from too much short-form content, the next generation of knitters and crocheters are embracing this pastime and forging new (but also kind of ancient) neural pathways. The so-called "analogue trend" might be less of a trend and more of a correction - a recalibration towards the tactility, delayed gratification, and mindfulness that our grandparents took for granted.
Em, who spends her working days designing digital interfaces, is clear-eyed about what knitting offers her. "You're just in the present moment," she says, describing those evenings when “the group gets stuck in a rabbit hole conversation and everyone’s laughing”. There are no notifications. No social media overlord deciding what you see next. Just wool, needles, and the people sitting around you.
Vee frames it slightly differently, pointing to the hunger for community that digital life promises, but often fails to deliver. "We [younger people] are looking for community, but with the current lack of third spaces for people to socialise, knitting is helping us feel connected," she says. Of course, there's a neat irony here: a comment on a Facebook page helped surface the desire for PubKnit, but PubKnit itself does not need social media to survive.
Both women also point to something more material driving the knitting revival: a rejection of fast fashion. "People are rejecting mass-produced clothing more and more," says Em. "Handmade clothes are sustainable and accessible, and last much longer." Vee agrees: "A lot of us want to create unique and well-fitting garments during this time of mass fast fashion and ill-fitting clothes. Good clothes make you feel good.”
Cultural movements and ethical fashion aside, knitting is also just fun. A satisfying pursuit that rewards you with the delicious ability to say “thanks, I made it” every time someone compliments your knitted apparel.
Fancy joining? PubKnit meets at 5:30pm every second Monday at Boodle Beasley on Elizabeth Street in Hobart. You’ll probably hear about it from someone.
