The Sweatshop of Love
How Allyson Dykhuizen avoided the post-graduate blues by opening a Chicago knitting school
By Elizabeth Rhodes
Published: November 30th, 2006 | 2:24pm
The heaping plates of lemon bars and potato-chip cookies went untouched Monday evening at The Sweatshop of Love knitting school. Allyson Dykhuizen's six students were too engrossed in the lesson to notice the treats. As their animated conversation veered from unfortunate last names to smug knitting store clerks to fear of giving birth, 22-year-old Dykhuizen asked one of the students to show everyone her work.
Karen Caauwe, a 34-year-old test engineer, held up a completed pair of bright blue handmade socks. She knitted sporadically since she was a child and recently decided to sign up for Dykhuizen's socks class to refresh her skills.
"I love knitting socks," said Dykhuizen, a Michigan native with curly, red hair wearing a green peasant shirt, jeans, and over-sized moccasin slippers. "If I could knit socks for everyone I know, I would so do it."
The class met at Dykhuizen's quiet, vintage apartment in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. There were three workshop students who wanted help with projects they had already started and two beginners. A fluffy tan cat roamed across the hardwood floor of the small, cozy living room where the group gathered. The reddish-brown walls were covered with photographs of Dykhuizen and her friends, a poster of a Salvador Dali painting, and a large map of Czechoslovakia.
"All right ladies, let's roll!" Dykhuizen began the class as soon as everyone had their tea or coffee.
Dykhuizen resurrected The Sweatshop of Love, a business concept she developed with a friend during high school, eight months ago. Since then, she has taught about 100 students, most of them beginners between 25 and 35 years old. "I'm just grateful that I get to do something creative and not stare at a computer screen all day," she said.
The number of knitting and crochet projects in the United States increased by 13 percent last year, with the most substantial participation growth in the under-35 age group, according to a Craft Yarn Council of America 2005 study. "After the feminist movement, everyone abandoned homemaker things like knitting and baking," Dykhuizen said, "but knitting is feminist. You are taking control of what goes on your body. You make it. It's all for you."
The Sweatshop classes usually meet at a local coffee shop, unless Dykhuizen knows the students well enough to invite them to her apartment. She offers three teaching classes that cost $20 each and last for two hours: Beginner, The Next Step and Advanced. Dykhuizen estimated that about 30 percent of the students who take the beginner class return for more. There are also project classes for students who want to practice what they've learned, including glittens, socks, and a matching scarf, hat and mittens set.
Monday marked 29-year-old English professor Lucinda Kurczewski's third class at The Sweatshop. She was trying to finish a cream-colored hat with earflaps. "I learned the very basics of knitting with my mother-in-law and yet, two lessons later, here I am making a hat," she said.
Class sizes at the Sweatshop are purposely kept small so students receive plenty of individual attention. Dykhuizen perched on a wooden table chair across from Kurczewski and between her two beginners. She checked on students' progress and then let them practice while she knitted a white sock with an orange toe and heel. With her encouragement, the beginners learned to knit, purl, and cast off. "This time you've got it Mandi - I can feel it!" she said to a student attempting a knit stitch.
Dykhuizen's high school drama teacher in Allendale, Michigan, taught her how to knit during senior year. The first thing she made was an enormous purple and brown intarsia shawl that extends six feet across and now adorns her living room futon. "It's really unique-looking and I always stress with beginning knitters that it doesn't have to be perfect," she said.
The Sweatshop of Love began when Dykhuizen and a friend started selling the bags, scares, mittens, gloves, and hats they made to other high school students craving a bit of individuality. Their thriving knitting business disbanded in 2001 when Dykhuizen left Michigan to attend Chicago's Columbia College.
The massive bookshelf in Dykhuizen's living room was overflowing with a wide assortment of literature, including Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, Richard Scarry's Best Christmas Book Ever!, and a copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare that stems from her May 2006 degree in fiction writing. A couple of months before graduation, she started teaching knitting lessons. "I love doing it so much," she said. "It's a good distraction from my office job, that's for sure."
Dykhuizen also works as an administrative assistant at a corporate real estate company downtown. Two or three times a week, she rushes home from work and throws down dinner before her classes meet from 7 to 9 p.m. "She schedules things like a crazy person," said Dykhuizen's boyfriend, Mario Scapellato, a 21-year-old with a mass of curly black hair. "She probably already knows what we are going to do for the Fourth of July."
The holidays are a particularly busy time for Dykhuizen, who sells her products online at Etsy.com and at The Yard Sale, a Bucktown neighborhood store featuring vintage and local designer clothing and accessories. "I am constantly knitting presents and [watching] football," said Dykhuizen, who cheers for the University of Michigan but will watch any college game.
After introducing her boyfriend to football, Dykhuizen taught him the basics of knitting. "I made a scarf for myself and a pair of socks for my mother," Scapellato said. "I think my dad may have been a little weirded out by it, but he didn't say anything."
Dykhuizen plans to build up her client list and save money to open a Logan Square knitting café; where she would sell her products, teach lessons, and serve coffee and treats. Scapellato said he is amazed at his girlfriend's hard work and determination. "I suspect she will build a storefront with her bare hands," he said.
Issue #35
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