Photo by Matt RoseBy day, she’ll whip you into shape. At night, she competes in the Knitting Olympics.

by Melanie McGee Bianchi

April Dennis is no drill sergeant. “I am not a yeller,” says the 45-year-old personal trainer and co-owner of The Fire Personal Training Studio in East Asheville. But she can be intense when it comes to her own workouts or helping her clients shed pounds with exercises like boxing, jump rope and kettlebell swings. People appreciate her enthusiasm in the gym. “Afterwards, they’ll say, ‘Oh, I had so much fun… but I’m so sore I can hardly move,’” she says.

Still, the clink of steel dumbbells and sweaty intensity of the gym couldn’t be further from her peaceful, meditative pastime: knitting. Taught by her grandmother, she re-learned knitting in college while recovering from a broken leg. And yet while she gushes sweetly about gorgeous lace-weight yarn, she can’t quite hide the competitive urge that crosses over from her career into her hobby.

A member of the online group Ravelry, Dennis competed in this year’s Knitting Olympics. Participants were expected to start and finish a project between the Winter Games’ opening and closing ceremonies. (She ran out of material at the eleventh hour, and, in order to finish her shawl in time, she sprinted to a local shop, bought the appropriate shade of hand-dyed blue fiber and spun it into yarn on her own drop spindle.) Further evidence of a jock streak: Dennis likes to make her own material and was a recent contender in the annual online spin-off Le Tour de Fleece.

Dennis is a solo knitter. She is not a fan of the “stitch-n-bitch” (a social knitting club), nor does she consider herself a hipster craft revivalist. Instead, she has seamlessly interwoven a pair of remarkably disparate callings. Her daily workouts are essential to keep in top condition, while her nighttime knitting can be yoga-like—calming, and just as critical to her overall wellbeing. “I get antsy if I don’t get to sit and be still with my knitting,” she says.