This began as a series of Instagram stories, and then I realized I wanted to add some more context. The stories are saved as the “that red hat” highlight on my profile.
There are lots of things you expect to learn when you begin something new. In my first year of knitting, for instance, I learned about things like cable stitches, sweater construction, and turning a sock heel. With the expected, there is often unexpected schooling that pops up along the way, too. In that same year, I also learned more about dismantling white supremacy than I ever had before.
I was, perhaps, tuned to the right frequency from the moment I picked up a set of knitting needles. The very first thing I made, the entire point of learning to knit, was a pussyhat. I went on to make more than two dozen of them in 2017 for friends who made donations to places like Planned Parenthood or the ACLU. At a time when so many things felt out of my control, making hats that were clear and visible symbols of resistance was a balm (not to mention great knitting practice).
During that first year of immersing myself in yarny Instagram, as my feed filled with crafters of all skin colors from all over the world, I saw that not everyone was as enamored with the pussyhats as I had been. I read about the many BIPOC crafters (and non-crafters alike) who saw the pointy pink hats as the latest performance of solidarity by white folks (mainly white women) who only make gestures like that briefly, and only when they personally feel under threat, while BIPOC live with greater threats every single day. Some people sounded angry, but most of them just sounded exhausted to me—tired of having to teach us the same damned things over and over again.
And I couldn’t blame them. It made no sense to say, “but I’m different!” when the reality was so easy to see, so easy to quantify (white women voted for TFG in frighteningly large numbers).
I tried to do a lot of listening and educating myself, both of which I continue to do. I have learned so much in the nine years since I made my first pussyhat. And? I’m still learning, and I’m still going to make mistakes.
When the Melt the ICE hat pattern (which you can get on Payhip or Ravelry, knit and crochet versions available) started appearing on Instagram in January 2026, I bought the pattern. I admit that liked the idea instantly. The story of the red hat’s role in the WWII Norwegian resistance is excellent, I loved the idea of a red hat actually pissing off the N*zis (instead of identifying their modern counterparts), and the braid at the top is just plain cute.
Then I remembered the reaction of BIPOC to the pussyhats in 2017. And when I soon saw similar reactions to the red hat, I wasn’t sure I wanted to make one.
I did eventually make my own, though I’m not going to make a big production of making red hats the way I did with the pussyhats. I’m really glad the pattern is raising so much money (last I saw they’re up to more than $650K) for Minnesota-based “immigrant aid agencies who will distribute the funds to those impacted by the actions of ICE.” I appreciated this post noting the money raised by some other popular craftivism patterns in the past, as well as highlighting some of the non-monetary benefits that can come from such a visible symbol like a piece of knitwear.
After sharing that post, a friend sent me a DM that prompted a short discussion, which I turned into a series of Instagram stories. I’ve pasted the text of those stories below.
I want to add a couple of points to the conversation I posted earlier today about the red knit hats… Points I was struggling to articulate and which a POGM friend helped me clarify.
And I want to start with gratitude that this friend spent their time and energy to engage on the topic with me, a white woman.
(And since I know someone will ask, POGM = People of the Global Majority—i.e. not white.)
My friend pointed out that, from the perspective of POGM in craftivism, “most YT people don’t do more than throw money at the problem. They rely on a small act and within the systems that continue to harm brown and black bodies first.”
This is not to say that money is not needed! Financial donations are important—crucial, even. And there are fundraising efforts aplenty that give donors something in exchange for their cash, whether that’s a tote bag from public broadcasting or a knitting pattern.
My friend said there is a lot of trauma among POGM attached to the act of buying a knitting pattern for a good cause, because it only seems to happen when the danger threatens white folks.
There are several similar pattern/fundraiser projects for Palestine, for instance, but none that I’ve seen with a similarly high profile (or amount of money raised).
In my friend’s words, “Yt folks really only act up when violence looks like it could harm them.”
If that doesn’t describe you, that’s great—and also not the point. White folks have given POGM folks every reason not to trust us, no matter how many pink or red hats we knit.
Masked thugs in our cities have murdered more POGM than white people in 2026 alone, but the only names most of us know by heart are those of the white people.
White folks, we have a lot of work yet to do. And maybe this is where it starts for a lot of people, the first time they have the proverbial wool pulled from their eyes.
I hope that if that resonates with you at all, if you’re feeling awake in ways you never have before, that you do everything you can do to stay awake.
There’s a great video I reposted and also shared in my stories that expresses a lot of this, too, and includes some tips at the end. I encourage you to tap through the story and watch the whole video if you haven’t already.
We need to show up, and continue showing up, even when—especially when—the cost is high—to people who may not look like us.
In the video, there’s lots of great advice. Some of my favorites:
“What helps is building up our own stamina instead of our urgency.”
“Support the folks who are already doing this work, and don’t expect praise.”
“Stick with it when it gets boring, stay with it when it’s slow, and keep doing the work when nobody’s paying attention.”
“It’s about turning the urgency into reliability.”
And I’m not here as any sort of expert. I’m here, posting a lengthy graphic follow-up, because I’m a white person and that means using whatever platform that affords me to make points that, who knows, maybe some of the people who see this may not have heard before.
To that end, I have added my IG name to each slide specifically so that if white folks have questions or want to discuss, they can reach out to me instead of sending a DM to a POGM creator they don’t know and who hasn’t offered that kind of labor.
I believe that we will win.
And I believe that is only going to happen if we do it together.
There is so much grief right now. I feel like I’m drowning a lot these days, and yet I am buoyed by demonstrations of community, big and small, all over the world.
And yes, one of those demonstrations has taken the form of a red knit cap with a tassel on top.
Let’s make sure the fire embodied in that little tassel never goes out.
I believe that craftivism is not solely performative, and that “performative” is not inherently negative.
And? There is no denying the very real harm done when we make a red hat and think that the work stops as soon as we put down our knitting needles—particularly when we’re capable of doing so much more.
Crafters are innovative, clever, and determined. We don’t mind putting in the time to make something beautiful—in fact, we often genuinely enjoy the process, even if sometimes it’s downright tedious (sleeve island, anyone?). If we’ve put in the work, though, and kept it up in a sustainable way, the end result is worth the effort.
In other words, the crafting community is basically made for the kind of sustained work, the building up stamina and turning urgency into reliability, that the moment requires—that the moment has required, frankly, for longer than any of us has been on the planet.
And I really want to emphasize the “sustainable” part here, because this is not about one person doing all the things all the time. This is community work. It’s about each of us doing our part whenever and wherever we can, feeling secure in knowing that we can take breaks when we need to because other people in the community are also doing their part. It’s about sustained attention, even when it’s boring and slow, because if you stop then the project languishes, forever undone, and it gets harder and harder to resume.
Yes, it’s hard work. And it gets easier when we’re all doing it.