American consumers are picking up hooks, needles and fabric shears at a pace that data companies say is without recent precedent. Searches for analog crafts including knitting, crocheting, embroidery, journaling and painting surged 136% in six months, while yarn accessory sales grew 40% year over year, according to the Michaels 2026 Creativity Trend Report.
The numbers behind the needle
The shift shows up sharply in consumer search behavior. Yelp’s 2026 Trend Forecast found that Americans are turning toward hands-on crafts with tangible results, a movement reflected in a dramatic rise in searches for sewing fabric stores (up 3,771%), quilting supplies (up 531%) and tufting classes (up 480%).
Crocheting classes rose 220% and needlepoint shops climbed 173%. Scrapbook searches also gained 96%, signaling a broader appetite to trade screen time for stitch-and-skill time.
Craft retailer data tells a similar story on the sales side. Mintel’s US Arts and Crafts Consumer Report 2025 found that 71% of consumers now identify as crafters, a figure that helps explain why retailers are expanding their yarn and notions aisles.
Gen Z leads the generational turnaround
The hobby category gaining the most attention carries an unexpected demographic profile. Gen Z and younger millennials are a significant part of the new audience, with Wall Street Journal reporting in 2025 finding that 86% of Gen Z identify as crafters, discovering knitting and crochet through platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Craft nights, clubs and workshops are transforming traditionally solo hobbies into social activities. According to Martha Stewart’s 2026 crafting trend coverage, 71% of Gen Z and millennials have expressed interest in joining a craft club.
That social pull is meaningful at a time when roughly 1 in 4 Americans ate every meal alone last year, a statistic that underscores how strongly many people are seeking in-person connection through shared activities.
The informal label “grandma hobbies” has become shorthand for pastimes long associated with older generations, including knitting, crochet, embroidery, needlepoint, sewing and visible mending. Michaels named 2026 its “Year of Creative Living.”
Screen fatigue as the underlying driver
Retailers point to the same underlying cause. Screen fatigue is reshaping how people spend their downtime in 2026, with Americans embracing digital detoxes and dopamine-boosting activities to unplug and unwind.
Knitting and crocheting create a built-in break from passive scrolling, and the repeated motions are being framed as self-soothing and meditative. That framing resonates with a population already wrestling with device overload: a recent Pew survey of 9,750 adults found that about half of US adults say their smartphone use is excessive, a sentiment that appears to be pushing some of that screen time toward handwork instead.
The pandemic’s crafting boom did not fade. It matured into what analysts now describe as a lasting lifestyle shift, with younger generations discovering the meditative value of making things by hand.
Market and retail implications
Mending, hemming and altering are especially popular among Gen Zers who want a hobby that forces them off their phones and saves money through practical skills. A genre of sewing video in which people transform old garments into new outfits has become a reliable route to viral reach on social platforms.
The upcycled fashion market, which includes everything from sustainable brands to material-recycling companies, was worth $8.54 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach roughly $20.65 billion by 2034, according to Precedence Research.
The craft-supply sector is watching the trend closely. Specialty retailers have reported rising demand for garment fabric and home-décor substrates as sewists move beyond quilting cotton into apparel projects, according to industry observers at the Craft Industry Alliance. Whether the surge sustains into 2027 will depend partly on whether the social and community formats now drawing in younger hobbyists continue to grow alongside the solo practice that originally defined these crafts.
