Contact
Email: emolynknits@gmail.com
Home Base: North Carolina
Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/EmolynKnits
Blog: emolynknits.blogspot.com
MY FAVORITES
Travel Desinations: Appalachian Mountains, Cajun Country, Hawaii, France, Spain, Morocco, England, Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, India, Nicaragua, Costa Rica -- and elsewhere....
Favorite Places:
The Fiber Part of Me
My mother is my knitting mentor. She taught me to knit when I was five years old by handing me a ball of yarn, weaving it over and under my little fingers, looping it up and over, and encouraging me to keep going. Soon a chain grew out the back of my hand. I grew addicted to knitting chains too long for anything functional so I wrapped them around the kitchen table legs, over the couch, under the chairs, up the stairs, and back and forth through the balcony railing. During the holidays we coiled finger-knitted chains from the trunk of the Christmas tree to the corn shuck angel on the top.
My mom then gave me needles and a ball of yarn. I was impatient to get information out of her and quickly gobbled up the yarn into a scarf. Then, she handed me a bag of yarn, helped me cast-on, and I knitted from the waist of a sweater up to the armpit before I admitted I hated the look of the pink and purple yarn. “That’s okay,” she said, “rip it out!” I had never unknit something. I couldn’t believe that that was the solution. All that time down the drain! But when she said it again in a matter-of-fact way, I hesitantly pulled the needles out of their loops and drew the yarn out of the first row of knitting. My mom came over, reached down and gave the yarn a yank. “Ah!” I yelled as it quickly came undone. “Go for it,” she said with a wink. Away I went, pulling it quickly, stitch after stitch, row after row, until the half-made sweater became a pile of zig-zaggy fluffy spaghetti. I flung the pile into the air feeling euphoric, understanding knitting even more after seeing it come undone.
A few years later, my mom surprised me on my birthday with yarn that she spun. I knitted a brown cabled sweater just my size and liked it this time around. Then she gave me a fleece from her flock of sheep, enough for me to spin the yarn to knit a sweater. Then she surprised me with a gift certificate to buy a spinning wheel to get the fleece to dye the wool to spin the yarn to make a sweater. I realized, as long as I was interested, she would keep me moving forward.
Now, I travel the country teaching knitting and selling my line of hats, scarves, custom projects, and hand spun yarn in multiple stores, online, and at craft fairs. The benefits of natural fibers are endless and the power of handmade is transformative. This fall I am going on my first “Roving Knitter Tour” to explore the knitting traditions in Ireland.
