2026 40 Under 40 Honoree: Kate Rosenzweig (33)
“I was a little embarrassed about my knitting obsession for a long time, and I wish I'd known that being loud about what you love works like a magnet.”
PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA
Kate Rosenzweig
Founder, Knit Pit Yarn Club; Senior Creative Project Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific
Forty people walked into Eleventh Hour Brewing for Kate Rosenzweig’s first knit night back in 2024. By the second gathering, the crowd was so large that beginners needed their own event. That initial event has since become KNIT PIT, a crafting community that meets at breweries across Pittsburgh.
Rosenzweig, who grew up in Pittsburgh and returned after time in New York City, now organizes monthly yarn clubs, weekly craft-a-longs, workshops, an audiobook club, and a Discord community with nearly 1,000 members. Rosenzweig says knitting circles have been a place of connection throughout history. KNIT PIT gives attendees a place to go, while a predictable schedule removes the burden of coordinating plans that keeps folks home and isolated.
As a creative senior project manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific, she draws on a decade in advertising to keep the complicated work behind KNIT PIT feeling casual and welcoming. She also hires other local artists to teach and design, reflecting her conviction that creative labor deserves compensation.
