Knitters chat as they work on their projects Feb. 22 at Yardgoods Center in downtown Waterville. Seated around the table, clockwise from left, are Lisa Matheson, Cindy Potter, Amy Gregoire, Ellen Paul and Wendy Nutting.  Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

WATERVILLE — It’s just about 9 a.m. when Maggie Rideout pulls up to the yarn store. Her remote job allows her to work from anywhere, and on Tuesdays, she chooses Yardgoods Center yarn store as her office, even if it doesn’t open for another 30 minutes.

As far as offices go, it’s a colorful one. Bundles of yarn tower high on every shelf and surface, crocheted flags brighten the ceiling, and walls of inspirational quotes offer a window into a world where knitting reigns. Rideout waits outside, ready to enter that world.

On Tuesday mornings, the knitters come in waves — mostly women, mostly retired, mostly in sweaters and socks of their own making — and fill the yarn store on The Concourse with laughter and the swish of needles. They will knit together for the next six hours, departing only at the notice of an appointment or grumbling stomach.

In the last five years, 70-year-old Brenda Grimes can think of only one time she didn’t make it to the knitting group.

“I think I’ve been here every Tuesday except when I went on vacation,” Grimes said.

The group meets twice a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Tuesday’s crew of 20 or so knitters settles around long tables in the basement, while the smaller weekend group meets in the front of the store, claiming their usual seats by unpacking the essentials: yarn, needles, pattern designs, lunch boxes and the first threads of the day’s chatter.

Ellen Paul, a 77-year-old Waterville resident working on a shawl for her best friend in Lake Placid, New York, said the knitting group has given her community.

“I live alone, so I need places to be with people,” Paul said.

Ellen Paul works on her project and chats with other knitters in February at Yardgoods Center in downtown Waterville. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

The group was born at a bleak time for social gathering. Like other businesses, Yardgoods had been forced to close at the dawn of the pandemic, but owner Joyce Vlodek Atkins recruited some old high school friends to make fabric face masks in the empty store, allowing it to stay open as an essential business.

“They would sit at the table and keep me company,” Vlodek Atkins said. “And then a few others started to come, and I worked by myself for eight months, and then more came and they started going downstairs. Everybody’s welcome — knitters, crocheters — they bring snacks and salads and cookies, and they can come and go, and the camaraderie is priceless.”

Grimes said the group finds any reason to celebrate.

“I retired in December of 2019, so I was making plans to do this and that, and everything just shut down,” Grimes said in early February. “So this turned into our social event. We create things to have parties, too — like next week, it’s Valentine’s Day, so we’re having salad bar day. Everybody’s bringing something for a salad.”

The knitting group transformed into an all-day affair, with group dinners to follow. Holiday celebrations — namely the famed Christmas pajama party — brought knitting and nightgowns together in an annual tradition.

Around the table, conversations jump from knitting — the reliable — to not knitting — the sometimes raunchy. Knitters swap stories and share updates on family and health, always keeping things accepting and positive, said Mari-Ann Faloon, who lives in Bangor and drives 50 minutes to come to the knitting group each Tuesday.

“At first it seemed kind of improbable to come down from Bangor weekly to do this, and now I can’t imagine not doing it,” Faloon said. “I enjoy these women so much.”

Two knitters work on designs in February at Yardgoods Center in downtown Waterville. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Knitting is traditionally considered a feminine practice, passed down from mothers and grandmothers as part of a woman’s education. It wasn’t always that way. Men’s knitting guilds flourished in Europe from the 1200s to 1700s, and men knit their own clothes until the Industrial Revolution — when factories boomed and women were hired to work in them.

Today, knitting is resurgent and its practitioners are changing. Since the pandemic, younger people and men have increasingly flocked to the craft, redefining its role in fashion, sustainability and popular culture.

Rideout, the youngest knitter of the group, learned to crochet from her grandmother, but she’s extending her skills. She came across the knitting group on a trip to the yarn store in 2024 and decided she wanted to learn.

“I was like, ‘This is what I want to be doing with my free time,'” Rideout said.

Knitting’s repetitive motions, neat stitches and symmetrical patterns are meditative for group members, many of whom retired from nursing and medical fields where high stress and steady hands cohabitate.

Knitting group member Martha Dempski of Sidney knits socks as she joined other group members for their Valentine’s Day celebration at Yardgoods Center in Waterville. Group members wearing pink contributed to a group salad bar before knitting mittens, blankets, cuddle buddies, sweaters, leg warmers, shawls and socks. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

Lisa Matheson, a Winslow resident who retired from nursing after being diagnosed with cancer, said knitting with the group is her form of therapy, as it is for other members.

“It gives me an outlet when I can’t do a whole lot. You get out, and talk and have fun and socialize,” Matheson said.

It’s also a community. Grimes underwent a knee replacement last April. She warned the group not to visit her in the hospital, but they didn’t listen.

“I was telling them, two months before, ‘Do not come to the hospital. They’re going to drug me up — do not come to the hospital,'” Grimes said. “Well, two minutes after they wheeled me into the room, two of them came with some flowers — I was so happy to see them. I was just beside myself.”

They came with a couple skeins of yarn, too.

If it’s not hospital visits, it’s rides to appointments, phone calls and Popsicles delivered to a sick knitter’s doorstep. Grimes said no one misses a Tuesday without notice, and if they do, they have 19 friends to check in on them.

Rideout, who successfully completed her first knitting project and is now halfway through a pair of high socks, said she learns a lot from the knitters each Tuesday.

“Whether it’s about knitting, about life — each person has brought so much different information,” Rideout said. “As somebody who’s really getting started in life, it’s been really nice to have that guidance. Especially now that both of my grandmothers have passed — I have a group of grandmothers to turn to.”

Knitting group members gather Feb. 11 for their Valentine’s Day celebration wearing pink and contributing to a group salad bar before knitting at Yardgoods Center in Waterville. Seated from left is Ellen Bentley of Glenburn, Wendy Nutting of Oakland, Catherine Begin of Waterville and Brenda Grimes of Waterville. The group was knitting mittens, blankets, cuddle buddies, sweaters, leg warmers, shawls and socks. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel