In Concord, a run on red yarn as knit, anti-ICE protest caps gain popularity

A salad-bowl-sized basket offered all the available red yarn for sale at the Elegant Ewe.

“This is pretty much what we have left,” employee Oak Sepe said from behind the register. “You can look around the store and see big gaps where there used to be red.”

The downtown Concord yarn store has sold hundreds of red bundles in the last two weeks.

The run on red is tied to resistance against federal immigration enforcement, in Minnesota and elsewhere, and the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. With a folded bottom, peaked top and braided tassel, the knit or crocheted beanies, now dubbed “Melt the ICE” caps, first appeared at protests in Minneapolis but have now spread to related assemblies in other states, including New Hampshire.

Sepe spent last week “manically knitting” their own cap ahead of protests in Concord over the weekend. Sepe wasn’t alone – red beanies dotted the crowd at a protest in Concord on Saturday.

The cap has its roots in a revival of an anti-Nazi symbol from 1940s Norway. It’s bright color was meant to bring cheeriness and hope as resistance in a dark time, a Norwegian resistance historian told NPR. The “nisselue,” roughly translated as a Santa Hat, was eventually outlawed by the Nazis.

A pattern for the caps was created by Needle & Skein, a yarn store in Minneapolis, and posted on Ravelry, a knitting and crochet enthusiasts’ site. At five dollars each, the store has pledged to send proceeds from the template, totaling so far in the hundreds of thousands, to immigrant aid agencies.

While the Elegant Ewe luckily had a healthy stock of red on hand, owner Kelly Bridges said, national suppliers are selling out.

“I did reorders with four different companies this past week and am only getting half of the red yarn requested, ” she noted in an email to the Monitor. “Everything else is now backordered.”

People were still popping into the store throughout Monday to see what they could scoop up, Sepe said.

Knitters are getting resourceful, Bridges added, blending colors to create a red hue or adapting the pattern to be usable with a different gauge.

In addition to their anti-Nazi roots, the caps are also reminiscent of pink hats worn to protest President Trump in his first term, most prominently at the Women’s March in 2017.

While some people are playing with different shades of red, (or taking whatever color and weight the Elegant Ewe has left in stock), bright reds in the sizes recommended in the pattern have been the most sought after, Sepe noted.

Knitters and crocheters have begun making red caps not just for themselves but also for friends or even taking commissions.

“It’s definitely spreading,” Sepe said.

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