Yu Ra Kim

Yu Ra Kim is an academic, knitting pattern designer, activist and event organizer. In the Summer of 2019 she began hosting the annual #QuietQueersCraftalong, a make-along for all fibre crafts which coincided with Pride. She entered the conversations surrounding diversity and inclusivity in the fibre world with a focus on racial justice but is also passionate about raising awareness of queer rights, disability rights, body acceptance and socioeconomic inclusivity. To that end she's begun implementing and advocates for broader acceptance of design practices such as wider size ranges and recommendations for socioeconomically accessible yarns. As a PhD student she studies the intersections between online communities, craft, identity management and boundary play by studying the ways in which the Instagram knitting community tackles difficult topics of conversation via the technological affordances of the platform. She published her first design in January 2018 and sells her self published patterns through her Ravelry Pattern Store.