Beyond Knitting
Atlas Insider: Making a Place
Dear Kay,
As you know, because I talk incessantly to you about it, I’ve got a place for makers living inside my head that at some point is going to pop out and end up a real place. It’s maybe a dreamy dream, but maybe not.
A significant factor in all my thinking about making and place and community was the publication of a book by our dear friend and creative director of the MDK Field Guide series, Melanie Falick.
Since this book launched, I have spent a lot of time with it. There’s something hypnotic about these 33 profiles of makers. The photographs by Rinne Allen are evocative of each person’s place and personality. They’re all following different paths, but their lives all boil down to something universal, something deep in our DNA, something both plain and profound: we are all makers.
We have opposable thumbs. We’re built to solve problems by making.
And, based on what we’re seeing at MDK, makers love to make in the company of other makers.
So.
We’re already planning more happenings, hoedowns, hootenannies, hangouts, workshops, and gatherings at MDK World HQ. As these plans fall into place, we hope you’ll figure out a way to come to Nashville to join us. Consider this your first of what will be many cordial invitations!
A Giveaway
The prize: a copy of the book that has captured my imagination, Making a Life: Working by Hand and Discovering the Life You Are Meant to Live by Melanie Falick. (Note that copies in the MDK Shop are specially priced right now if you’d like one right this minute.)
How to enter?
Two steps:
Step 1: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Snippets, right here. If you’re already subscribed, you’re set.
Step 2: In your own life, what place comes to mind when you think of a fond memory of making? Please leave a comment on this post.
Deadline for entries: Sunday, August 7, 11:59 PM Central time. We’ll draw a random winner from the entries. Winner will be notified by email.
Love,
Ann
Art class in Pittsburgh, as a child, in the Carnegie Museum. Also, knitting classes at Sears! The 2 best parts of my schoolgirl life!
Lisa, your comment made me smile. I only knew talented kids in my Mt. Lebanon school classes who went to Art Classes at the Museum. Weren’t they on Saturdays? And called “Tam ‘o shanters”? And I too took knitting at Sears one Summer! My classes were at the South Hills Village store. I always say that was my first exposure to knitting but it didn’t “take”. Not then, nor the other two times I tried. But three years ago was the last time I started. And haven’t stopped since. Greetings from Illinois!
My favorite memories are made in my sewing room, sitting across the sewing machine from an 8 year old grandchild and teaching them to sew while making their first quilt. They choose the fabric, learn to use a rotary cutter, sew it and knot it. I pin and pray they keep their fingers intact.
Lisa! I went to art classes at Pittsburgh Carnegie museum too! Oh my goodness. I’d almost forgotten. God bless my mom for getting me there. It was inspiring and started me on a life of art and making
Last October, we spent the weekend at my daughters house. We went to a craft festival, then spent the evening painting Christmas decorations that she created on her glow forge .
I went there too! I’m not very artsy, but more crafty. I still love the Carnegie, though!
As a child, I was always making something from nothing – cut-outs from the Sears Catalog, doll clothes from mom’s sewing scraps, etc. But it was when grandma came to visit that I was encouraged and taught to do anything and everything. She helped me make a quilt when she saw me sewing squares together and she brought yarn and knitting needles into my young life. Grandma was the Maker In Chief!
Girl Scout summer camp at Camp Tama, Japan. We covered a range of crafts —macramé, leather crafts, beading etc.
So many places come to mind, but the common thing they share is that gatherings were happening — holidays, classes, get togethers — where the objective was making! Food, fiber, art, and more all infused with joy and enthusiasm in the making.
Learning to knit at age 11 when taucht by mom’s friend. Later relearning and loving the craft in Germany as a college exchange student.
Knitting with my Grandma Belle. She taught me English knitting. I struggled until a neighbor taught me continental style.
Love the word “hootenanny,” and I’ve been eyeing that book for weeks! My mother enrolled my sister and me into a summer art class when we were in grade school. One of the projects we worked on was embroidering designs onto scraps of denim. I still remember my pride at mastering chain stitch on the outline of a dove on my sampler.
Mamy years ago, I was in a group that met weekly to chat, pray, crochet, and knit. Those memories are both home and making to me.
Now I have a zoom group that meets most days of the week. They have become my tribe, and I love each of them deeply!
My best memories are whenever I’m with family and friends. Doesn’t matter where we are. But learning to knit and read a pattern sitting beside my sister as she taught me..going to sisters and cousins LYS, vacations when I wake up early and knit in a peaceful cabin in the mountains!
There was an elderly German lady that was a wonderful artist and she started offering lessons to the neighborhood children and teenagers in the seventies. She had three large tables that we’d gather around. She’d start the new students with pastels to learn about still-life drawing, shading and how to use the color-wheel. You could later move onto to acrylic or oils. We’d occasionally walk around the room and feel inspired by each other’s work. Many of us in grade school would bring our portfolios for show-and-tell and the news of her art lessons spread and became very popular.
My favorite artwork picture I made for my Mom’s birthday was a picture of personified crescent moon and cloud having tea up in the clouds with a quilted table cloth between them. I used oil pastels
Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Camps. Everyone contributed, but EZ was our mentor and I will forever be grateful.
So many places! The first that comes to mind is an old garage/powerhouse on a island I worked on in my 20s. I was teaching myself how to work with metal and combining that work with fiber arts, most crochet. It was a very creatively inspiring and productive time.
Home is my place of fond making memories: as a teenager, sewing most of my clothes; as a parent, making Christmas ornaments with my children for family gifts; cross-stitching 1Cor 13 as wedding gifts for my children; and now, knitting. I learned at age 66 and am grateful the knitting group who taught me and pointed me to YouTube! I hope my time and budget allow me to accept a MDK invitation to HQ some day. I’m sure it would become a fond memory in a place other than my home
Me too, Carol. Home. My mum taught us just enough to get started in one needle crafts after another. She gave us a little instruction and practice after persuading us to invest our time and coaxed us to commit by letting us choose the project, the colours. Her sisters, who were names on Christmas presents to us, made us sweaters every year based on the measurements of our far-away cousins. We grew up valuing hand made, and the sky blue v-neck pullover my Auntie Barbara made me is still my close-to-perfect garment.
Covid isolation has strengthened the home-craft thing. I now have a potter’s wheel and a kiln in my basement as a result of successive lockdowns that shuttered my local clay centre for months at a time. But I go back because connection is important too, and talking to other, more experienced makers is exhilarating.
I did a lot of scrapbooking with a friend in her basement or my sunroom. I also sit and knit regularly with a friend whose DH always makes us tea. I recently got together with the Knit Wits group in a pavilion outside the library for the first time since Covid stopped our meetings inside the library.
It’s so hard to choose just one, as making is such therapy for me, but when I was a very little girl I had an elderly great aunt, who frightened me with her sternness – until she realised I was interested in the embroidery she was doing. She showed me and gave me a small piece of wool tapestry to work on and we were suddenly best friends. She died not long after and left me all her embroidery things. Such a special memory.
❤️
Beach house at the Jersey shore, embroidering and knitting as a young girl.
Oh, gosh, that sounds wonderful!
I love knitting at our beach house in Stone Harbor
I have a fond remembrance of a black and white photography class at Arrowmont many years ago,led by a marvelous teacher. His first name was Carlos,taught at Sewanee and lived in a Wright house on the mountain,and I can’t remember his last name.One of his most famous photos was of a bird with his head stuck in a plastic six pack holder. Since then,, I have cut such “traps” into small bits before disposal. So much is commenced in pursuing any creative endeavor!
My making memory is at home with my younger sister,during the late 60s early 70s. Our Mom got us craft kits every Christmas and we eagerly tackled them all. I remember doing woodburning, ceramic painting, leather sewing, wooden ornament painting, shrinky dinks, potholder loom, and our favorite was the Creepy Crawler Thingmaker with plastic goop! We tried to learn crochet from our Gram, but it didn’t really take hold. I like to think that my Gram would get a kick out of seeing my knitting projects these days.
I did love shrinky dinks as a girl!
Oh I forgot the Easy bake oven and the Incredible edibles kits! Such fun!
Most of my making happens in various places around my house. A recent memory from someplace else has been my mother teaching me how to sew on her mother’s 1934 Singer sewing machine which she has promised will be mine one day.
As a young child, in my maternal grandmother’s living room, where she ever so patiently taught me how to crochet lace edges on pillowcases with her very delicate steel hooks & cotton thread. I still have her hooks – they’re perfect for adding beads to knit & crochet projects.
My sewing room! So many brilliant ideas were realized there. The walls are lined with my yarn and fabrics.
Sitting with my uncle at age 8, learning how to knit.
Knitting socks on a plane while flying to the Caribbean
in my old home growing up – watching my mother create new sweaters out of old – carefully unraveling the old – balling the yarn and knitting new sweaters for all of her children
Baking pies with my grandmother who lived upstairs from us.
Sitting in front of the hearth at Tracy’s Place, where inspiration, coffee, dogs, and friendship combine to make ‘making’ a joyful endeavour.
Embroidering a dresser scarf at my grandparents’ house when I was about nine years old. I crocheted
a scalloped edging in ecru cotton. I still have it.
Acorn people in park w my uncle
We made flower dolls with rose of Sharon flowers! The flower is the skirt and a bud tied on for the head with yarn arms. We made dandelion flower crowns for all the girls to wear, too.
In my great grandma’s parlour with my great auntie, being allowed to have a try at operating her full size floor loom when I was about five years old!!
Crafting with my sister and a few cousins at my grandmother’s house, where she hosted “Cousins Club” to teach us embroidery and knitting and how to play the card game Flinch. There was never a better grandmother. She is my inspiration in so many things. She died in 2007 at the age of 102. I still miss her.
Learning and making at The Clearing, a folk school started by landscape architect Jens Jensen, located in Ellison Bay, WI.
I was going to say The Clearing too! It’s such a wonderful, inspiring place to learn a new art or practice an old one.
A knitting retreat at Pocono Plateau Retreat Center in PA. We gathered, we dyed yarn, and, we used that yarn to knit socks. We hiked, we rocked in rocking chairs on the big porch (which included a stone fireplace), we made new friends, and laughed copiously.
My grandmother’s sewing room. As a very young child, I would sit under the large sewing table as she cut, pressed and sewed listening to the varied sounds of each part of the process. As I got older, I would sit next to her as she did all sorts of crafts ( knitting, crochet, sewing, needlepoint) and watch as she talked about what she was making.
I have enjoyed making things in various ways at all stages of my life, in all places, with many groups of similar ages & in times when I’ve been helping young ones create, as well as creating in my alone time.
The Little Bits Workshop in River Forest, IL Is one of the most magical places I know. Once while teaching a Saturday knitting class to young girls, I was struck by one girl sitting on a couch, pausing from her knitting, and just taking in the room. When I asked what she was thinking, she didn’t hesitate to respond, “Everywhere I look here I see beauty.” That has stayed with me for many years. I still feel inspired every time I am there.
A profound observation. I’ll recall that, as needed, when I miss seeing the beauty and see only the busy.
Knitting at our home on Lake Michigan with the waves crashing on the shore.
I love sitting around a table at church with my gal pals knitting (some of them crochet). The barriers break down and the conversation flows once folks’ hands get busy making. We share and chat and chatter and we try to solve the world’s problems. We haven’t managed world peace – but we are getting each other through babies and tweens and teens and grandchildren and illness and all sorts of life’s challenges!
Learning to knit, so young I don’t remember actually learning, surrounded by my mom, grandma, and aunts, so there was always somebody there to help when I needed it.
The most spectacular memory is a knitting trip to Ireland. But equally special is my Thursday afternoon knitting group that meets in the back of a gift shop.
Following my father as he made art from everything
My mom made every dress I had, including some matching dresses for my doll. I was 9 when she actually bought me a dress. It made such an impact that I still remember it.
She taught me to sew, I made potholders on a loom, learned to knit and cross stitch. Such fond memories…p
Learning to weave in the early 70’s at Pacific Basin Textile Arts in Berkeley. An old bright warehouse crowded with every sort of loom and big uncluttered work tables. Pat McGaw and Inger Jensen were my Ann and Kay.
At the ballet studio where my daughter danced
Making the macramé hanging over the door to our cabin.
I have dabbled in many creative outlets but fiber arts have been the thread running through it all. Mostly self taught from books and mags. My earliest memory is macaroni and glue in the summertime in the backyard. I guess that’s where it all began.
I have fond memories of sewing on my mom’s Featherweight as a child and teenager. Although the setting was not fancy (a card table in the corner of a hallway), I produced beautiful clothes for my dolls and me. I made most of my clothing during middle school and high school. I also made pillows and slipcovers for chairs. After high school, I became a weaver, knitter, quilter, embroiderer, and needlepointer. Now retired, I have started to sew again.
My first knitting group was in Pittsboro N.C. and was made from some of the most wonderful, helpful and kind knitters that I have ever known. Some no longer knit but have other making hobbies but in my memory, we are laughing and helping each other and finding a place in each other’s hearts.
I used to teach kindergarten Sunday school. I took in my featherweight and helped the kids make a baby quilt. Everyone got a chance to “ drive”. It went so slow and I kept their hands away from the needle that I felt it was safe They picked out fabrics and we had a grand time. It was far from “ perfect” but they delighted in gifting it to the newest member of our congregation. It looked like it was made by kindergarten kids. Beautiful! And so fun!
The attic at Cheekwood. As a middle school student (we didn’t call it middle school back then), I took painting classes up there. Thanks for asking me to remember that place and time.
On a road trip to Florida in the early 1950’s, my mom taught me to embroider.
From the time I was born my parents lived with my maternal grandparents! The home was lush with handmade things: curtains clothing both sewn and knitted. There were two gardens: tea roses along the walk from driveway towards the kitchen entrance as well as an enormous perennial cutting garden of flowers and herbs. A young German woman lived with us a cared for the house and me as my mom was not well. She painted and made the most amazing story houses from cookies which included sugar glass windows and miniature surges birds and trees!
PS: this was also during the time I learned to sew, and knit!!!
I’ve done so many different types of making in my life it’s hard to choose. My first thought was a memory of sitting at the dining room table at my grandmother’s house learning to use a sewing machine, one of the worst memories with her actually. My favourite memory is the first time I brought knitting to my now husband’s house; he was shocked at how calm and less fidgety I became.
My mother’s sewing room is my original inspiring place for making. Now it’s her basement, where she keeps paints and tools of all kinds, including upholstery pliers, useful for recovering chair seats. My mother has always been a fearless maker, and I’m grateful for her as my making role model.
Knitting with my BFF, Sally. We talk, we knit, we make mistakes, we laugh, we tink, we knit more….
My livingroom sofa with my 2 young grandaughters (4 and 7), teaching them to knit at their demand.
In middle school my mother signed me up for sewing classes. When I was there I felt at peace with myself. I stopped worrying what others thought of me and whether or not I fit in. I made a gold colored corduroy jumper that I wore with pride.
I learned to knit on grad school in Baltimore as a way to combat stress. That first year knitting crooked scarves everywhere I went – in class, in bars, in my favorites apartment when I couldn’t look at another assignment. My knitting is so closely tied to my degree – family, friends and knitting got me through. I still knit during my continuing education courses. Psychology classes and knitting are forever linked for me.
My childhood kitchen! Learning to cook with my mom, crocheting my first afghan, painting, and teaching myself to knit!
My paternal grandmother teaching me to crochet at the age of five. Also all the times we spent crocheting together. She’s been gone 25 years, and I still miss her every day.
When I was in my early teens back in the 70’s, I embroidered a pair of jeans whenever I visited my Aunt & Uncle. I still have those jeans today and have to say, that I really am impressed with the work I did when I was so young! They are like a work of art to me!
In my kitchen making Christmas Cookies. My Swedish heritage means Christmas Cookies of every variety. I loved trying new recipes and variations of my own. The aromas were wonderful and sharing the cookies with friends and family throughout the Christmas season was beautiful
Staying with a friend while she was in the hospital for 3 days. Both of us were working on Scandinavian motif mittens, which took us away from the reality of the place we were in. She made mittens for her husband to wear during winter birdwatching; I made mine for another dear friend.
I knit my “Roots and Wings” shawl of a lovely soft baby alpaca while teaching my son to drive, then finishing it as we drove 3 states away for him to begin his college adventure. I recall those memories and smile each time I wrap it’s softness around me!
An old farmhouse in Wisconsin where the younglings taught me to crochet.
When we were little, a few weeks before Christmas my mother’s friend would come over with her linoleum block supplies, and the kids would all get a block to design, carve, ink and print for Christmas cards. I remember everything about it – the feel of the tools, the smells of the inks, the little curls of carved linoleum. And the whole family around our big round dining room table, laughing and working together. Wow, haven’t thought about that for donkey’s years, thanks for the memory!
I remember watching my mother’s hands as she taught me crochet in my childhood home.
I took a summer weaving class when I was in middle school and the instructor let me work on a floor loom which to me was mind boggling. I made a nifty wall hanging which hung in my bed room until my parents sold the house
My Mema’s house. She had a large closet in her living room that was her sewing space. There were shelves of fabric, buttons and other notions on each wall. She also had a space in the basement for a cutting table and a dressmaker’s form. She taught me to sew, embroider, crochet, quilt, and the rudiments of knitting. We worked together on many projects, some of which I still have. Mema fostered our creativity and nurtured curiosity in crafting. I miss her very much.
Making my wedding dress. All the way from selecting fabric from my favorite NYC shop to my aunt sewing on the buttons the night before. Even to the point of making my red shoes into white ones when those I had ordered never arrived.
When I was growing up I had a friend whose mother was an excellent seamstress. I remember she once sewed us matching shorts and top outfits out of seersucker and the same little matching outfits for our dolls. I thought how wonderful it must be to be able to create things like that. I think it was then that I decided I wanted to be a maker also. Thanks for the inspiration, Madeline!
Our first apartment after we were married. I didn’t have a job for 6 months and I didn’t know a lot of people yet. I spent my afternoons watching my soap operas and doing all kinds of needlework as Christmas presents for our family. I also .did a lot of cooking, baking, and reading. Such a happy time that was the foundation for the rest of my life. I don’t watch soap operas anymore though!
I remember the first time I pulled felted mittens from the washing machine and felt the wonder of their transformation.
Sitting in my grandmother’s living room when I was about five year old, my “aunt”, my grandmother’s dear friend, taught me how to knit. I didn’t do it for years, but started back as an adult. Now it is one of my favorite things to do!
Please hop on the way back time machine to the late 70’s / early 80’s with me….remember the Bermuda Bag? My mom was an incredible sewer – she never used a pattern so if you could dream it, she could make it. I desperately wanted a Bermuda bag – all the cool kids had one! We were pretty low income and Bermuda bag covers cost a pretty penny. My mom being the amazing maker that she was made me the coolest Bermuda bags that I could switch out every day. Such a great memory!
My Father’s shop.
My knitting journey began with knitting lessons at Sears of all places a very long time ago. I now have LYS across the country in the areas I travel the most
The knit shop, learning to knit at age 50 and discovering a portable use for my fidgiting.
I thought of Mr. Antonioni’s heavenly happy art class circa 1970 where I made a little clay lion sculpture that my dad kept on his desk for the rest of his life.
Sitting our family’s home in the mountains of Mourne in County Down N Ireland and watching her knit a pair of socks faster than I’ve seen anyone move her hands. Absolutely amazing and mesmerizing and an act of love.
Of all my project memories one comes to mind right away…… working on a small needlepoint canvas while sitting in a hospital room with my mother. Every stitch was a prayer.
Sows ear, my local yarn shop/Cafe in Verona Wisconsin!
The Outer Banks of NC.
Sewing class at a Singer store in Peabody MA where I learned to sew in 7 th grade. Then master classes from my grandma in St Paul. She taught me to knit too. She lived till she was 101 and was always a Maker and encourager in chief!
Every September, sitting in a corner of the couch with a new project to watch all the new shows! I learned many new knitting, crocheting and embroidery techniques that way. I still have to have something in my hands to watch television.
I love knitting in our cabin in the woods. It sits above the creek and you hear the water flowing past. Sometimes I glance up and see an eagle soaring or turkeys coming up from the stream. And sometimes deer crossing the stream.
Star Island retreat, off the coast of New Hampshire, where I connected with other knitters including one from my home town.
Painting by numbers with my mom. She was a “real” painter. Me. Not so much !!!
OMG! I’d totally forgotten about those. My dad was an artist but I loved paint by numbers as a child. I also adored embroidery and remember my first sampler which was very cleverly designed. Each row was a different stitch and each row was slightly longer. Starting from the top down. Once finished you had a gorgeous Christmas tree.
Today I’m embroiled in knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery and from age 4 I danced ballet through most of my adult life.
Where ? Everywhere!
My fond memory is when my husband and I were living in Munich, Germany back in the late 80s. I would observe the women on the U-bahn as I went to work each morning, steadily knitting during their daily commute. I was inspired by the contented looks on their faces to learn to knit. I did so using a book in German and the least expensive yarn I could find (we didn’t have much discretionary income!). Thus started my knitting journey. I still have that book (Stricklexicon, 1500 Muster from mon tricot) and when I see it in my shelf I am grateful for the joy it has brought me!
As a child, my fondest memories of making were during the summer in our tiny house in the mountains, in an old mining town in Colorado. I was constantly creating things from found objects and flowers, embroidery and scraps of old fabric. I still occasionally run across them!
So strange but the few times I have been told to rest for extended periods of time (pregnant, recovery from surgery, etc), I really enjoyed being about to spend that time knitting while I healed. So I guess my fond place is a couch! Might have to knit a couch potato in honor of that. 🙂
My best friend’s dad made me a wonderful wooden garden chair with extra wide arms to hold coffee and cake and lots of seat space for my knitting. Made by a maker to support my own making.
The big art room in my high school. It was a sanctuary for two hours every morning. Many years later, when I was in grad school, the big work table at the yarn store. I knit many pairs of socks and some shawls while sitting at that table listening and talking.
What a lovely question, which is evoking many fond memories. One of the earliest memories that immediately comes to mind is when my dear grandmother taught me how to knit. I must have been about 8 or 9 years old. I remember the needles were very small and plastic, probably from a child’s beginner’s kit. My grandma casted on and bound off, and I knit and knit and knit (lol) a scarf for my doll. I felt a sense of accomplishment knowing that I could create something useful.
I think of making jam with my Grammie… she also taught me to knit, so she’s tangled in many makings…
My grandma was a big knitter. So I would say Grandma’s apartment- she always had a project going, and a closet full of yarn!
My mom bought an old school desk for 2 people at a yard sale and used it as a sewing machine table. It was in the unfinished half of the basement. We also had a ping pong table there where she cut fabric. I learned to sew there and watched my mother make clothes for us for hours. I got my love of creating from my mom.
When I was young my grandmother and I made many latch hook rugs together. I loved having this special thing with her
I have fond memories of the card table in Grandma’s apartment, lots of fun things were created there with her.
As a young girl, 4 or 5! I would go across the street to our elderly neighbor’s porch. Ethel Trounson!! She was an amazing lady. A fantastic baker and seamstress. She would hand sew ties for for husband. She taught me to sew – and we would sit for hours talking about all things important to a young girl. She was so wonderful. She had 2 favorite phrases- ‘the hurrier I go the behinder I get’ and ‘sew and rip, rip and sew’. I think I may have distracted her and she would make mistakes, but she made the best of it, and taught me it’s ok to make mistakes, and to fix them. But the most important lessons were sewing, friendship, and the art of listening.
So many fond memories. The smell of construction paper when I was a wee thing…the thrill of camp crafts. Clay sculpting class as a corporate dropout… The serenity and magic of learning loops through loops making knitted fabric, sitting in a corner chair while ogling YouTube in front of the fire (just a few years ago! Haven’t stopped since). Places for Making hold magic. Hope we can help you to build your dream!
Heidelberg, Germany: We were going to be living there for at least a year, while my husband set up a new lab at the Max Planck Institute. We brought a very VERY limited number of things from our home in the States … mostly clothes and musical instruments. One of the first things I bought was a crochet hook, some yarn, and a pattern to make a few things for our furnished apartment. (This was when I learned that there was a difference between U.S. crochet stitches and U.K. / European crochet stitches!) The next thing I bought was a tiny sewing machine and some fabric … voila! … clothes for the growing boy! More yarn, more fabric, lots of music making … we ended up being there almost 2 years and it was probably one of the most creative and productive periods (so far) in my adult life.
Once I organically knitted a dress for my young niece
As mundane as it seems, I recall the classroom for junior high sewing class. Our teacher was a wonderful woman, fresh out of college. It was fun and inspiring. My memory of the room always includes sunshine pouring in. A false memory since this was in northern Indiana, but metaphorically correct because a path to creative making was opened.
When I was recovering from a broken ankle and had just moved to south Jersey and needed to do something productive. Has time on my hands and my creativity finally appeared when I found a sweet shop in Mt Holly New Jersey and the owner patiently taught me how to knit in 2015. I never looked back and fully addicted and immersed in creating beautiful memories thru knitting.
As a youngster I attended our church’s summer program and in sixth grade we sat in one of the offices in the church basement and learned how to knit and made small mittens for the “mitten tree” which were given away. Another year, as an adult, we taught the children how to make bread which we shared. It seems we are never too young or too old to make and donate.
Brownie Scout Camp and Vacation Bible School in small town Wyoming — oh, the crafts we enjoyed.
Every January I gather with a group of gal pals at Henry Horton State Park. While most of them scrapbook, I enjoy some high quality knitting time. Some of my favorite projects/new skills have been undertaken at these gatherings. I have the time, space and lack of distraction to be able to just make. It is utter joy!
In my childhood home. My father worked for a school supply company and he would bring my sister and I art supplies. We spent countless hours painting, coloring, cutting, gluing, weaving creations out of our imagination – no TV, no video games, no computers to distract us.
As a kid, watching my father make sculpture at the kitchen table every night, after a long day using his brain at work.
Driving to Schoolhouse once a week when my kids were all under school age and taking weaving lessons there . My friend did the driving. It was my adult time once a week just for me as a individual person not being a mom!!
I loved that me time day and also making my own designs on a loom!
I think I should start going there again??
A folk school in Sigtuna, Sweden that I attended while in college. It’s where I relearned/learned to knit. I know I was taught English style as a child by mother or my grandmother. Sweden is where I learned continental knitting and how to knit something more than practice swatches. It seemed like everyone knit and its the first place I saw men knitting. I pursued knitting for a while then got involved with a hand quilting group at work. Knitting went on the back burner for years. I picked it back up because It was a “faster” craft (hahaha).
My Aunt Jane, a grade school art teacher, who sprinkled her making skills among all those eager little hands and minds. I could write books, but she has been an inspiration my entire life,
Bible school, I loved the seemingly endless supply of crayons, colored paper, glue and scissors, still do!
Campbell Folk school in Brasstown NC is my place to go for being in a community of makers, doers and dreamers.
I was at a birth17 years ago- sat in a chair and knit with beautiful navy blue yarn- and a couple years ago I ran into to that father of that grown up baby and he told me that he remembers the sound of my knitting needles and it brought him great comfort.
I think of the dining room of the house I grew up in. My Maker-Mom-Extraordinaire sewed, knitted, crocheted, hand-caned furniture, upholstered, painted, hooked rugs, embroidered, needlepointed, plus more… all to keep sane while raising 7 hooligans, love you Mom, happy birthday
The Ephrata Cloisters is where I bought my first cross stitch, as a child. That started me on fiber art. So many different ways to enjoy them!
Fond memories of my knitting ministry group. Learnt to knit and years later have retained some of the friendships.
My grandmother’s house! She always had fun projects for us! Crochet, dying eggs (and that one time we got ostrich eggs from my other grandmother), sugar egg decorating, and sewing!
Around 4th grade my Girl Scout troop had a play and I was cast as a grandma who sat in her rocking chair with a babushka on her head knitting. I needed to learn to knit, but no one in my family knew how to knit or crochet, and I was afraid my acting career would be over before it began! One of my grandmas volunteered to teach me a few embroidery stitches, so she found a hoop, some fabric, and various yarns and threads she had around the house. I was hooked, and never looked back! I knit, crochet, weave, spin, quilt, and more. At 63, I’ve made countless textile items for gifts, for myself, and just because. It’s gotten me through the good times and bad. I love being a maker!
An old enameled top table in our basement. Craft central! Just past it was my dad’s workbench, where he would work on his projects, including silversmithing.
I remember going to the local knit shop with my mom. She could knit and crochet really well. She also did other crafts. My love of crafting came from watching her. My mom always had my sister and I involved. She was a Girl Scout leader and a summer rec director. Crafts were always a part of that. My son likes to work with his hands. I am doing my best to pass that onto my granddaughter.
I remember sitting on the floor in our family room as a child playing as my mom sewed on her machine. Also watching my grandmother sewing on her treadle sewing machine. I learned to sew in junior high but later switched to knitting. My friend’s mother Mrs. Snape ( a home ec teacher) taught me how to cast on- I used her method exclusively for the next 40 years.
I love to remember the new knitters I helped make as we travelled as expats around the world. I’m back in the US and they are scattered back to their home countries but I do still see what some are making.
I have a few places in my past. But the first that came to mind was my grandmother’s bed. She was a dialysis patient, long ago, and had her treatments in her home (long story). Since she couldn’t move from the bed during treatment, I would join her. She helped me with so he’s of all sorts- knitted, embroidered, quilted. It was a special way to share with her.
I had been struggling with the Undulated Waves scarf pattern by Laura Nelken for years. Finally, while on vacation with my family in the Adirondacks, I spent at least an hour each day on the beach, doing the project. I don’t know if it was the soothing vibe or just the opportunity to work in such blissful surroundings, but I finally conquered that lace and beadwork and created one of my favorite pieces.
My mom had a special room for her many crafts. I remember spending hours with her there as a child/teenager and the many conversations we had about making a good life. Sweet memories.
Ahhhh, that book is indeed special! I wish I could give you knitting memory, but I am really just an ambitious pattern follower. My forte is in the kitchen, and although I am a recipe follower as well, I usually adjust them to suit my taste and feel a real sense of accomplishment when I hit that ‘just right’!
Knitting the first grandchild sweater.
So my very first memory of making was an art teacher in the 5th grade. We were military so I have trouble remembering where. She helped me paint something that I had started and added just a little to make it take my breath away. She encouraged us to think and create games from just cardboard and things. She was a very good teacher. The second really clear memory was walking into a yarn store and the owner being so welcoming and inviting me to their knitting circle so that I understood we were all at different places.
Learning to pin and cut out a pattern on my grandmother’s dining room table.
My mother introduced embroidery to my sister and me one summer by drawing x’s on gingham print fabric. She later made aprons for us. A treasured memory.
My Grammie’s porch and kitchen where she taught us to do all kind of handwork.
The front porch! I’ve always lived in a house with an expansive front porch (yes, I know how lucky I am). And for decades-since my teen years when I first discovered the joy of being a maker-I’ve used the front porch as my special creative nest. It’s been the starting point of countless knitted items, cross stitched samplers, and handwoven (yes I do drag a loom out there in summer) towels. Mother Nature is a fabulous coworker!
Every time I’m with another maker– my knitting friend Cathy, my sewing friends Michelle, Tomasa, Vivian, & Anita, my mom, my American Sewing Guild friends, every class I’ve taken throughout the US & internationally!
My friends & I did a “teach ourselves to knit socks” camp many years ago. We learned so much as we laughed & cried & ended up with hilariously wonky socks. It also started a love affair with sock knitting for me.
Learning to knit, around 10, from my Aunt Susie who was just a few years older than me and SO cool. Many years later, after she died, I knitted socks for her daughter in remembrance and thanks for the gift she gave me as an awkward kid. Knitting saves you!
My fondest memories of making are baking cookies, crepes, Norwegian lefse and Christmas cookies with my small sons. When dating my husband, he once asked me what I wanted in life-and I spontaneously responded, “a kitchen to bake cookies with my children.” We’ve been married for almost 45 years!
Timothy Sanchez’s art room on the first floor of Plainview-Old Bethpage High School. I was hyper-academic (with a passion for art). Mr. Sanchez was the first person who told me it was possible to be an artist (and not just an academic). He encouraged me to think about creativity. Many years later, he’s one of a handful of high school teachers I know had a serious impact on my future life.
Sitting on my Grandfather’s front porch swing when I was in grade school making a tie for my pony tail.
Sitting in a rocking chair at my friend’s lake house, I dropped one of my knitting needles through the porch plank. It remains there today, trapped under the porch. I was unable to complete my project that weekend.
I have a favorite chair to knit in while at the beach. My happy place to do my happy making.
Oh gosh, my earliest making memory I have is hand sewing clothes for my dolls with my Nana. I felt so creative and empowered with only a needle, thread and fabric scraps.
My Grandma’s house is where I learned most of my making.
Hi, the spot I think of is my mom’s sewing room when I was a kid – my big sister went off to college and never came back so her bedroom became the sewing room. I learned sewing and so much more in that room. We had many conversations about life.
Knitting with friends while on vacation in Hawaii on lounge chairs in our swimsuits
Sitting as a child at my Nana’s feet while I practice knitting, embroidery, crochet, and sewing. Happy memories.
The living room of my childhood home, every summer from 1981 through 1991 – my mother and I were cross-stitchers, and we’d both spend most of the afternoon stitching. We might put our work down if “All My Children” was particularly compelling, and we’d take a break around two o’clock to make tea, but otherwise it was all stitchin’ for about four hours every day.
CRAFTCATION at Ventura Beach Marriott, CA
I remember when I finished knitting my first sweater in 7th grade. It had some mistakes, but I still loved it. I am almost 70 and still have that sweater.
Our summer house in the Adirondacks
I’m not going to answer this particular prompt, but I am going to say that Melanie Falick’s book Knitting in America was one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read.
As a child I always created with lots of colors. My mother called it a mess. This frustrated me, but I hsve come back to creating first with needle and thread foe counted cross stitch.
Now with knitting needles interrupted with some paint and water.
My grandmother taught me to sew when I was 9 or 10. I remember sitting at her foot pedal sewing machine pushing lined paper through the pressure foot over and over again. I had to have perfectly straight lines before she gave me actual material to sew.
Reading through all these comments has been a mini mental vacation, places and times familiar! Either summers watching and learning crochet w Gma or in a watercolor class decades later, or maybe the Saturday art classes at WashCo Museum where as a GS we took turns volunteering to help with the younger kids and all the floor looms sat in the back room for the adult weaving classes, or maybe just making macrame hanging planters one after the other for gifts. So many intersections w making.
Going to my grandmother’s house and watching her “make” – sewing and knitting clothes for my Barbie doll or baking a delicious blueberry pie, among other things. She gave me the inspiration to use my hands to “make”.
Sunday dinners at my grandparents house. After dinner my grandmother and my aunts would sit down with embroidery, knitting, or crochet. It was “their” time and anyone interested could join in and learn whichever craft they wanted. I started in embroidery by threading my grandmother’s needles for and learning the stitches. Now my family jokes “if it has a string, I play with it”.
I think of the third floor walkup apartment on Forest Street in Providence where I sat in front of an open window next to a fan meant to dispell the August heat as I knit impossibly fine pale green (We didn’t know the gender of our child before its birth then.) yarn into sweaters and hats for my first born–a girl born in September.
I live in southern New Mexico, a place that is NOT a bastion of knitting. I did re-learn to knit after moving here and was active in the local knitting and embroidery guilds but there are not many of us and we can’t seem to interest young people in joining us. Sometimes there is a local yarn shop, but they can’t stay open due to the limited demand so most often the only places to be able to caress yarn before buying it are a couple of local chain stores.
When TKGA held their annual conference in San Diego I knew I had to go. A friend and I drove out and spent 3 glorious days surrounded by wonderful fellow knitters, the best teachers and every imaginable item a knitter would ever need. And lots of yarn to caress before buying! It was the most beautiful feeling, to be surrounded by all that knitting love and energy. I am so grateful that I was able to make that trip, that I had a good friend to share it with and that for at least a couple of days I could live in an environment that supported and fed my inner world.
In each of my homes, I have always dedicated an area for sewing and making. In my last house, I had my own office/sewing room. Today I have a sewing table and machine in a dedicated section of my sunny, large bedroom where I sew, make jewelry and plan my knitting projects. My favorite knitting spot is a corner of my sofa.
As a child with my Grandmother. She was always seeing and doing knitting. She taught me both. She has long since passed so it is always my connection to her.
My Monday knitting group. We met every Monday at noon for an hour or two of knitting, coffee, food, and conversation, rotating living rooms. It became so much more than just the making. After several years I moved to Minneapolis and I miss those makers all the time. Still looking for a place here.
my grandmother’s sewing room where I learned to use the sewing machine which has colored every creative endeavor in my life ever after!
Sitting with my knitting circle. They are such talented women and it inspires me to be a braver knitter.
My best memory of making has nothing to do with the kind of making I do now. Every summer of my youth I went to summer camp in the Poconos, an escape from my home in the big city. This was during the 50s and early 60s. Most of our time was spent outdoors doing every kind of sport in a pretty fabulous setting. But as much as I enjoyed these activities nothing made me happier at roll call than to hear that my bunk had arts and crafts on that day’s schedule. My favorite was ceramics but I loved them all. Then one summer I had a counselor who did needlepoint during rest hour. She taught me how to do it and let me work on her project, a profound generosity when you think about it. That was when I knew that making would be my joy. I followed my mother into knitting, my father-in-law into hooking rugs, a LYS owner into crochet. Sixty years later I cannot pick up my needles without the memory of the scent of sunshine on pine needles.
Being at my Grannies home learning how to knit, with Fag (potato flat bread) with lots of butter for snacks.
The Ranch in Stehekin at spinning rendezvous–sitting on the porch with our wheels on the perfect summers day
My local coffee shop. Years and hours of sitting with my knitting (and non-knitting) friends talking, drinking coffee, and knitting.
Sitting next to my paternal grandmother, who was always working with her hands to create beautiful treasures.
My grandparents farm in Mo., where my Nana taught me to crochet and knit and my Mom taught me to preserve the farm garden and fruits. We made our own music too! Piano, uke and guitar and lots of harmonies. We were making memories, as well as a good life.
My Thursday night knit group, or my high school ceramics class. The ceramics class taught me the importance of being in the moment and joy in the process. The knit group, taught me the joy in creating a community of like minded makers.
Learning to knit at my grandmother’s knee, years ago, and knitting with my group of gals as an adult. The projects were fun and interesting, but the company and talk were the spice to the making!
My sunroom overlooking the Sunnyside valley and the San Juan Mountains.
Two marbling workshops — one traditional, one modern – at the North Bennett Street School in Boston.
Oh, friends, there are so many. A living room in Casper, WY, hand stitching a gathered skirt for a doll, tutored by a close friend of my mother’s. (This woman also taught me double and triple digit multiplication.) I was maybe eight.
And Aunt Ruth, machine sewing a doll dress at my direction, giving measurements by eye, and being praised later when the dress fit the doll.
The Canadian military wife, in West Germany, who taught me continental knitting, after watching my laborious self-taught English throwing. I’ve never looked back.
The woman at The Stitching Post in Oklahoma City, who taught me how to spin on my first wheel. I focused and struggled and sweat through my jeans.
And my classmate, also Phyllis (Rainwater, where are you?), who taught me that once I had knit a stitch, I needed to drop it off my left needle, that it wouldn’t disappear. No wonder my knitting didn’t look right!
Thank you, sisters, for your gentle, patient, shame-free tutelage. Each of you helped change my life. I remain humbly grateful.
A dear friend and I would meet at her house once a week, take turns cooking supper, and then knit. Now another friend and I knit together over zoom regularly. It keeps and strengthens the connections.
I belonged to a group called “Fiber Crafters” that met once a month in a church gathering area to spin,knit,and share. It was in Mt. Sterling, Ky about an hour from my home in Lexington. Many of the ladies in the group had sheep, goats and lamas which were sheared, they then carded and spun the wool. It was a magical group. Women who belong to these groups are always so open and generous with their friendship and knowledge. I am truly grateful for the experience.
My Grandma had her “studio” in the barn in an attic over the pig pen. The stairs were so narrow and steep my 8-year-old hips barely fit through. It smelled of turpentine and dust. I thought it was magic.
I took photography classes at the community college in St. Louis about 20+ years ago. The evening classes were filled with middle-aged adults continually seeking creative outlets. The darkrooms were a place of magic where we learned together, teaching each other, and rejoicing in the successes, and laughing at our many failures, both inside and outside the space. The red light glow of those community spaces provided an intimacy and a protection to share ourselves, opened us to each other’s struggles and triumphs. Many of us became life-long friends. It was a very special time in all of our lives, where the tribe seemed to form from very divergent paths. Like I already said, it was magic.
My mother taught me how to knit when I was a very little girl we spent hours knitting together on the beach in Atlantic City. There was a great knitting store on Ventnor Avenue I can’t remember the name but I loved it.
Many years later when I broke up with her boyfriend Knitting was the way to quiet the voice in my head I always say 11 sweaters and two coats later I was completely over that relationship. 10 years ago I had thyroid cancer and started my knitting adventures again I just wanted to cover the scar on my neck so I started knitting cowls. The scar is completely invisible but I’m still knitting every day.
Living in UTx Married Student housing, where I taught my self to knit by reading Barbara Walker’s books from the public library and knitted a light blue sweater for my blond, 1-year old son. A few years later, I copied a Madam Alexander rag doll, but made it a boy named Rusty instead of a girl. A friend brought me the perfect rusty yarn for Rusty’s hair – it matches my adult son’s hair color today, rather than his blonde hair then. Rusty has blue eyes and still lives with us.
Rhinebeck when i tried out and purchased my spinniing wheel
Such a beautiful book. So many memories of making both alone and in company hard to pick one. My first time making mittens taught by my French teacher in Vermont. That is a nice one. The magic of side ways mittens. Like origami only warmer.
Not one specific place. As a kid I liked making all the things. At summer camp new crafts and making with wood. As an adult, pottery and knitting. All good.
Making clothes for my Barbie dolls and trolls as a kid — they had the most ornate outfits. Simplicity, Vogue, etc. all had Barbie outfit patterns. Earning a badge for crafts and four sewing in Girl Scouts and learning to knit and do hemstitching from my grandmother. Started me on a long journey, with a very long paise for a career as a lawyer, and revived in the past few few years as a continuing source of relaxation and enjoyment.
My life is all about making, in as many aspects as possible. My mom was also a maker, so I was always encouraged at home. Birthdays and Christmas weren’t complete without some type of art supplies or crafting materials. I went on to art lessons, art school, etc, and paint, knit, sew, quilt, wood carve, whatever I think our home needs. Without my mom’s encouragement, it all would have been a lot harder getting started.
My favourite making place is an old garage on a working sheep farm that has been converted into a yarn shop. The wood stove burning on a cold winter’s afternoon, the cat sleeping in a tub full of fleece and the friends sitting around a table soothes the spirit and inspires creativity.
A fond memory is knitting with my sister. Just being together with the needles clinking away.
Learning to weave with Jane Heirich, my professor at the Residential College, University of Michigan. She will always have my heart for her kindness.
losing all track of time and being entirely wrapped up in creating
A Gathering of Stitches was a place for makers in Portland Maine where I rekindled my sewing practice and where I was introduced to a local community of makers. That has led me to also getting back into knitting and I’ve learned to spin as well. Sadly it is not a physical space anymore but it is the host of several annual workshops that bring together the most wonderful people. I’m sure you find inspiration for your own dreams in this are if you reached out!
knitting sock on my sofa
My sister and I spent the summers with our grandparents. My grandma taught me to cook, sew, embroidery, crochet, knit, to work with resin, planting a garden even loving an aquarium. I lived for the summers and now do these things with my own grandchildren.
Probably making beautiful Barbie clothes out of Puffs facial tissues.Remember how wonderful they used to smell before they took that allergenic scent out! The pink ones were my favorite color to make dresses for my many Barbies, Skippers, Midges etc.I once made an entire collection including A wedding dress!
My best making memories come from art classes in high school (early 1970’s) The teachers were real artists and were very encouraging. It was a place to get away from more stressful academic classes.
I think about the dining room in the small house where I was born. Alongside the dining room table was my mom’s sewing machine right by the window. She made so many clothes for us there. She would carefully put the pads on the table to cut out the patterns and we would stand on the chairs to have our hems set. When I occasionally complain to myself about not having enough space for my sewing and knitting, I think about that dining room and all the uses it had.
Doing a little cross stitch coaster of an ancient Icelandic symbol which I bought the day before in a Icelandic gift shop on a whim. I am more of a knitter but this one really mesmerized me….
Our backyard. Memories of sitting under the tree in the summer with my grandmother embroidering pillowcases and handkerchiefs. Thanks for jogging that memory. It makes me smile.
Mom taught me all things cooking, sewing, knitting and crafting. She also taught me that all of these skills make a beautiful expression of love to church, shut ins , neighbors dealing with difficulties,etc. Sometimes I think she wanted to be sure what she taught me covered all the bases as she would sign me up for classes at Sears, YMCA, summer camps at grade school,etc. She was super encouraging, I would quilt in the living room sew on the back porch. I even lugged my sewing machine when we went camping and sewed at the picnic table! Inside the camper when sun went down we would knit together. Every year we would try to top the # of lap robes we made for nursing homes. In the kitchen we made comfort food for others. What fabulous memories you have brought back! Thank you!!
I think l have always been a maker. When I applied to the National Institute of Design in India, I didn’t have a traditional portfolio. Along with elaborately embellished stationery, I showed the interview panel photos of this elaborate cardboard and paper doll house I’d made, complete with furniture, patio and swimming pool.
I spent some happy years at NID- so grateful to the legendary Charles Eames who established the school back in the 1960s.
Local playground had crafts activities in summer. We made so many friendship bracelets. That was the beginning for me.
I am an art school graduate, who had lived in urban industrial buildings in San Francisco and New York. To have room to make stuff, and not have to clear it off the dining table for dinner, I know this is special. Now my husband and I put a second story on our old roof rotten adobe farm house. I have a huge room with high ceilings, dormers, skylights, windows with a view. This is my ideal making space, and I don’t have to put my sewing machine away!
“Re-membering” how to knit. Watching a video series by the late, great Elizabeth Zimmerman & making a hat for my newborn son.
There is a small shop near me called “Esther’s Place” (Esther was a sheep) that is owned by a very talented fiber artist. I’ve so enjoyed getting an opportunity to test-drive all sorts of fiber-y crafts: spinning, weaving, needle felting, dyeing, wet felting, etc. I’ve also participated in project-specific group classes, as well as just hang out and knit. A lovely place, with lovely people, who all encourage each other.
My bedroom was my place of making when I was growing up. Starting with learning to knit when I was in bed sick with the flu around age 7 or 8, making potholders to sell in the neighborhood when I was a child, to learning to sew on my inherited Singer treadle machine when I was eleven years old. I embroidered, quilted, knitted and sewed – you name it, I learned to “craft” in that room and am still making every single day at 66 years old.
Guantanamo Bay Cuba, American military base in the Caribbean. I was a young mother of a 1 year old when moved there for 3 years. I went into the local Michaels in the US and picked a craft, which turned out to be cross stitch. I bought some accessories and a couple of kits as not possible to get on the remote military base (too early for internet). I spent 3 years doing a lot of cross stitch, replenishing every time we got to the mainland US. I made ornaments, wall hangings, baby announcements, pretty much anything I could in cross-stitch. The temp there was a balmy 90 most of the year so not super conducive to fiber crafts but I needed to keep my mind and hands busy.
My first memories of making were my Nana crocheting edges on wash clothes and baby blankets. She taught me so much. Sitting by her was the best place. I hope I remembered to tell her so. Then learning to sew with my Mother. Then watching her cross stitch sitting outside her RV waiting for Dad to return from trout fishing. Nature and making have always blended. They both restore my soul.
Definitely going to Art and Craft shows with my older sisters. I remember one at Columbia University and of course many at Lincoln Center. I had an older cousin who made incredible jewelry and belt buckles, almost with a western flair. Then seeing her makings for sale at these incredible shows….she lives on a huge farm. My idea of a place, for making, esp in the summer, would be in wooded area, up in a tree house with bits of sunshine sneaking through (I also love the magazine about women’s creative studios. I drool when looking through that.)
Also sleep away camp, beginning at age 10 making colorful things out of lanyards!
My earliest and fondest memories of making were on my uncle’s dairy and poultry farm – we lived next door, so I basically lived on the farm. We made hay when the sun shined, all the kids and adults from the entire neighborhood worked the fields together. We milked and pasteurized, we tended huge vegetable gardens, gathered eggs, picked apples in the fall. All this product was then used for making meals and baking, taught to me by my aunts and mom. I was taught to knit and crochet as a young child too, and though I eventually put that aside for a few decades until I picked up yarn again in my 40s, when I knit now I always think back to that beautiful simple farm. (Uncle Harold is 98 years young, he still helps hay the fields and gardens.)
My first hooked rug, in 7th grade – with orange one of the prominent colors. Hook latch rugs do people do those anymore?
My late mother-in-law’s lake house. We went there most weekends, and I knitted on the beach while my kids played in the sand and swam. Happy days for everyone.
I remember helping my grandmother by holding a length of fabric up at the best height for her to feed through her beautiful treadle sewing machine. I was perhaps 8 years old at the time. Just fascinated by the process. Fast forward many decades, I was visiting an aunt in Wisconsin, & on my bed was that very quilt! It was the fabric that I’d never thought of but never forgotten! I know the fascination with creating has had a huge, lasting impact on me. Such a gift over the years.
one of my knitting mentors was a woman named Kay McKenzie; she owned an LYS in Holland, MI named That Place. She was a wonderful woman and a great mentor. I always knew I had a place to go if I had questions or problems; she encouraged me to do things I was afraid to do. I still miss her. That Place was a welcoming place for me and others like me.
I spent many Monday mornings with the Handweavers Guild of Boulder’s knitters and spinners groups, in the classroom of Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins. Just sitting with everyone, making and chatting, seeing everyone’s projects, made a huge difference in my life. I was a professional mother at that point. That was my time to just be myself.
My favorite maker memory is working with my father, who was a cabinet maker, designing a piece of furniture for my teenage bedroom. The smell of sawdust is particularly memorable.
If you are here, and you knit, you are already a ‘maker’ – a modern term for creating and simply making garments, etc., that has gone on for as long as we have been covering out bodies for warmth and protection. There are as many different types and reasons as people; from the poor to the rich. Re-making a garment is not new, nor is re-use. I know – I see it in dress collections I work with. Some are privileged to do it as an ‘art’ form; others from need.
My first trip to Rhinebeck was a cornucopia of fabulous examples of making, apart from all the delicious fiber.
Learning to knit with my grandmother when I was eight years old!
Washington D.C., on the mall, in a big tent, 4 of us knitting on the same blanket in a circle. Knit Out!
During my Hardanger Lace making era, i designed and made 2 christening gowns. They were made for two very special people in my life, my goddaughter and my niece.
I have been fortunate enough to be able to attend a few “Fiber College” events in Searsport, Maine. Every time I go I love it no matter what workshops I am taking. In addition to being able to focus on making something and learning something new I get to eat delicious food in a beautiful setting with wonderful people.
Scuba diving in Indonesia. Floating weightless in the vast water with the beauty of the undersea world all around.
I learned needlepoint from my grandmother. I loved those times spent together at her house. Such a gift!
i have so many fond memories of making it is hard to pick just one. i seem to have been making forever, but learning to knit, and how it finally took remains a bright spot. i had carol lafollette as my teacher for the class and we made aston shawl. it is a lovely shawl. i used mad tosh garnet fingering weightnyarn.
Spending time with my mother in her kitchen as a pre-teen and teen, learning all the basics of cooking. My cooking now is quite different than my mom’s was, but that foundation is still there.
My fiber arts group meets twice a month for few hours of chatting and making. Love it
Mrs LaPuma’s piano class at the Italian cultural center was the beginning of the “making” possibilities when I learned more than just piano.
Best memories of ‘making’ are always with my Mother. She’s no longer around but her love of creating was gifted to me and I’ve been able to pass it down not only to my children but now grandchildren
A lifetime of exploring, poking in to new projects, making. Right now thinking with fondest memories of sitting in my Mother-in-Laws family room, by the fire, working on and reading about needlework while she worked on one of her constant projects.
So many! But the one that sticks out in my mind is sitting on my great-gramma’s lap as she taught me to knit when I was 5 or 6. Thanks, Gramma!
Learning to sew from my mom in our dining room with all the other girls from the Pins & Needles 4-H club.
Knitting peacefully in a quiet room…
At age 12, I learned how to sew in home ec (that was thing in the ’60’s!) and continued to sew by hand since I didn’t have a sewing machine. My great aunt Sally gifted me with a Singer Featherweight, which I still have and use. Many more warm making memories evolved since.
Summer elementary school day sessions. All about creativity and play.
My backyard growing up. My Mom or someone else’s mom would do things with all of us kids. We made kites, made our own paper dolls, made pot holders and even put on a performance of the Nutcracker Suite. I like the feeling of doing things with others… probably why I enjoy my knitting buddies so much.
I love meeting up with friends for coffee and knitting. Is our special memories of friendship, and of making. I also have a craft, or a craft paper cards, it is a happy place for me.
Yarnfest and Quilt Colorado.
With my good friend and next door neighbor who is a professional quilt designer. We knit or do hand sewing surrounded by her beautiful creations.
A favorite place to make (knit) – being on the flybridge while cruising with Al and working on a project, but changing the project midstream and making it something else — i.e. a pair of socks becomes a pair of fingerless mitts because the stitch pattern or yarn speaks to a different item or maybe working on a shawl knowing full well that the finished object won’t be a shawl using a skein of special gifted yarn, but a cowl using the special yarn and some handspun that has been plied with some really cool commercial novelty yarn and voila a bandanna cowl.
knitting with others while sitting under the hibiscus tree, covered with pink flowers, in my front yard in nairobi!
My grandmother’s house.
When I retired from a lifetime of working with families with children I decided to voluntarily teach kids to knit in school. There was a local scheme’knit 2 pass it on’ so I got help from a few W.I. friends and began. We had a great time with 7-10 yields for 2 years, ending each year with a big event. The first was a local knitwear designer who offered to show knitting with beads Debbie Abrahams was her name and the2nd was was a local farmers’ wife (WI) again who brought her whole family including lambs to tell from sheep to knitting wool. The kids loved it all and so did we. We were so sad when finished but happy if only 1 boy or girl kept an interest in knitting. Xx
The place where I first started weaving on looms – the weaving studio in college. Harriet made it the most accepting place.
My mom seeing with me when I was small (4-6). Art classes in elementary school. And, coloring at my grandmothers house. She was ALWAYS up for a new box of crayons. Oh joy.
When a woman I didn’t really know heard I wanted to learn to weave sought me out, packed me up, and took me to my first weaving class at our very awesome weaving store. I absolutely fell in love with weaving and am so grateful (she was an amazing weaver and knew just where the best classes were). I was already a knitter and loved this new experience. Nothing like dressing a loom! I’m someone who likes to keep my hands busy no matter what!
My fondest memory was learning to knit. I was taught by my grandmother when I was about 8. I still remember how patient she was when she showed me.
Fourth grade. Mom sewed a lot of my clothes, and she’d made me a whole outfit that I proudly wore to school. Lavender jacket and pants, plus a skirt for church. Lace-trimmed blouse in a coordinating print, beautiful trim on the jacket pockets and lapels. My PE teachers were oohing and aahing over it, and I felt so proud of Mom’s skills, so proud to be wearing this outfit she made for me, every detail chosen for me. The sound of her sewing machine was background to the soundtrack of my childhood.
I have fond memories of both my grandmothers. My Norwegian grandmother was a pioneer and had to do EVERYTHING. . .gardening, sewing, spinning and knitting. My other grandmother was of English descent. . .although she passed away when I was only 6, I remember her knitting argyle socks!
My favorite place to knit is next to an old beaver pond in Hatcher Pass in AK. It’s ringed by mountains and my golden retrievers love pulling all the sticks out of the water while I happily knit away.
my mother was a potter, and for most of my childhood my brothers and i traveled with her every summer to art fairs across the eastern half of the country. those fairs were, and continue to be, incredible sources of creative inspiration for me.
My grandmother’s house. I was the oldest grandchild, and received the earliest of invitations to spend the weekend planning projects and learning to do. She lived in the uppermost apartment in an old Victorian; the apartment with the turret, and that was our craft space. Coincidently, that house was caddy-corner from my elementary school and I could see it from the playground. My grandmother was a retired teacher, home economics and English for non English speakers. She had boxes and boxes of scraps of everything imaginable (I remember my dad and uncles grumbling about the box of feathers when they moved her to this apartment). I learned early from my Scottish/English grandmother to reuse and recycle. I learned to knit, to sew, to make felt boutonnière for all my aunties, each a different style. And these were not unassuming lessons. We knit a royal blue turtleneck shell, sewed a color locked velveteen dress in my favorite hot pink and blues. She taught me that creativeness is what makes life interesting in that little circular room. And don’t get me started on apple dumplings in her feather bed on Sunday mornings!
When I was 8 years old, my grandmother taught me to crochet. Then with different balls of crochet cotton I could create magical creatures of any size or shape. Dogs, cats, turtles, dragons… This filled my hours in the back of the car as we traveled.
When I was growing up we had a balcony area that overlooked the living room. I had my sewing set up there. That way I could see but still be a part of what the rest of the family was doing.
As a teenager, I was taught to knit by my mom’s good friend. Afterwards, I sat cross legged on my bed practicing those knit and purl stitches, teaching myself how to “read” the stitches and how to fix mistakes, which were plentiful.
My family had a large dining room table which was crafting central! We cut out fabric for clothes and quilts, made ornaments and wreaths, did macrame, anything we could think of. Every night, it was cleared off so the six of us could eat dinner. It had two leaves that were added for holiday dinners.
I made most of my first child’s clothes. So fun and so cute!!!
My Mom getting me started by teaching me to crochet left-handed, which was the way she knew best and it worked really well because I’m left-handed too.
And decades later when I re-discovered knitting (I taught myself as Mom had tried but it wasn’t as fun as crochet for her) I found my way back from a very dark place in life by finding an amazing knitting group who have become my dearest friends. They have seen me through my darkest moments and inspired me to go way farther with knitting – and so much else. I truly believe these people have saved my life more than once and all because we share a love of making.
It seems like I was always making something when I was little. I recall cutting 50 snowflakes out of white paper trying to make each 1 unique design. I remember getting a toy version of a sewing machine because I wanted to sew clothes for my Barbie doll.
As an older child, my mother showed me how to take the bus to go into the city to take a sewing class that I think was at the JC Penny store or building. I was the only child in the class. I remember feeling so ‘grown up’ that my mother had signed me up for the class and then taught me how to get there on my own!
I have many fond memories of sewing, working a needlepoint, and knitting while with my mother and grandmother, and learning the basics of each skill from them. The making of a mobius cowl, learning Cat Bordhi’s cast on in a class at Yarn Folk, took me to the next level of wonder in knitting.
Not to brag but I can’t help it. I have good memories, which, are continuing, of making with Melanie, particularly sewing!
The place would be sitting in backrooms of knitting shops with groups of knitters and in living rooms/dining rooms/kitchens with groups of knitters. Where as we stitched and helped each other, we also knitted in love and friendship.
My making life has had fits and starts but has found its home on the MDK site these past few years. I’m hoping to land at at MDK HQ in person someday.
Too many to list but the first one that comes to mind is designing the stationary for my big life events – worked with a friend to design my wedding invitations, designed my own save the dates, folded beautiful full page magazine pictures into awesome envelopes for another big party. Mail should be special!
The Parks and Recreation summer program in Midland, TX many years ago. New arts and crafts every day for free! We were lucky to live across the street from the park, so my sister and I could come and go on our own.
Mine has been a life of crafting but it’s culminating in having bought my very own home four years ago and there are projects everywhere. Some are done, some are in the middle, some are materials in a stash, and some a dreams in paper or in my head. Life is good. I have learned to live in my space unashamedly and my friends are still willing to come, watch my progress, and rejoice with me.
I got to do 2 workshops with Cat Bordhi, one at a retreat and one at a local quilt shop.
Attending The Wool Market at Estes Park back in the day when there were internationally known experts who taught classes and had booths. I learned natural dying from Carol Lee and got to visit her house for natural dying retreats a few times…Magic. All the people just oozed inspiring creativity.
My Aunt Bea taught me to crochet when I was about seven or eight. We would sit in her living room next to one another on the couch while my Uncle Lester listened to the radio. We started with fine thread and tiny hooks, and I turned out a lot of pretty messy edging and doilies, but she was infinitely patient at detangling and correcting my mistakes. If I was very lucky, there might be some fresh-baked cookies at the end of the lesson. Their home was a place of warmth and acceptance, with almost every available surface covered in a piece of crochet, and I loved it.
As a child my grandmother and aunt lived 4 houses down the street from my family. It was my mother’s mother and sister. My grandmother had a treadle Singer sewing machine. I was fascinated that this machine worked without electricity. We lived in Baltimore. I was also fascinated with a box of buttons that she had in a drawer. What I learned later on was that my grandmother worked in Alterations in a department store in downtown Baltimore. By the time I came along, she no longer worked there. She had retired, but she taught my mother, who also had great sewing machine skills. My mother made a lot of my sister’s clothes when she went off to college in the 1950s. I’m not good on a sewing machine, but my mother taught me to crochet and I made a lot of crocheted vests while in college in the 1960s.
Too difficult to choose just one memory, so I will share 4 of them. In the earliest I was 5 years old. My mother taught me how to crochet, just chain stitches at first. I made chains that could wrap around the house! In the next, at about the same age, she taught me how to use a “Strick Liese” ( Knitting Nancy). And once again, I made endless lengths of I-cord. The third and fourth memories are about my grandmother (Oma) from Germany. She came to stay for a visit of about 6 months when I was 9. She taught me how to sew using a sewing machine. I have some wonderful old pictures of us working together. Also, during that stay she and my mother both taught me to knit. I’ve never stopped making things. I wish I could say that I was able to pass on my passions to my daughter, but she is a very different person than me. I did try, but this kind of making just never caught fire for her. Her passions are elsewhere and just as rewarding to her. I love her dearly and she brings joy to my life. Now there is a grandson and perhaps he will want to learn these skills. I will certainly give him the opportunity and look forward to when he is old enough to start making his own chains to wrap around his house!
I want desperately to visit MDK HQ for an event. Sadly it’s not easy getting to Nashville from the boondocks of Northern California.
I beg everyone’s pardon. I didn’t read the ground rules for commenting.
I’ve been compulsively making baby blankets (most for charity) during the pandemic. I’ve enjoyed trying new patterns and color combinations. This makes for a good feeling.
Knitting sweaters for my mom. She always loved what I made for her and always work with pride and took excellent care of my sweaters
I love the making memories that occur every Tuesday in my local knitting group. We share our lives as well as knitting and crafting. I have learned a lot about the making life and I look forward to every Tuesday!
Knitting toques and scarves for my kids when we lived in cold Manitoba. It felt good to see them head out to school wrapped in my handiwork.
Nights with knitnerds. knitting, laughing, complaining. Cherish then and now.
I would say there is not a specific place but an idea or group. I especially like making in community. There’s nothing better than getting together with your fellow spinners or knitters and hanging out for an afternoon…wherever it is.
Loved all the summer days knitting on the patio with my mom while my boys played in the little pool or dug in the dirt. If it was too hot to knit, Mom usually had a bag of mill ends from a local yarn store that she would wind up for use over the winter.
My favourite maker memory is of my aunt coming to visit from Scotland and bringing me a beautiful, white summer top she made for me. She didn’t notice until she was sewing it up that one of the cables was reversed and she didn’t have time to take it out and redo it before her flight. She showed it to Mom and me when nobody else was around and we were the only ones who ever knew about it. As Mom said, “A blind man running for a bus will never notice it”. I haven’t fit into that top for years but I’ll never give it away.
When I was little, my Mom taught me how to knit. I didn’t have the patience for a scarf, so she showed my sister and I how to make simple sweaters for our trolls. My sister and I were so inspired that we wrote a book on how to knit clothing for troll dolls.
The place that comes to mind is my grammy’s house. She collected craft of the month kits that I picked from when I visited. We would sit and make one together. And then my mom proudly displayed it at our house.
For some reason, I think of a time when I was knitting almost compulsively. I was about 19 (i’m 61 now). I was knitting a pair of legwarmers from a fair-to-middling acrylic, and listening obsessively to the radio station I volunteered at. I knitted and listened all day and most of a night, knitting and knitting. I was mentally ill, of course. I remember the joy of feeling the work slide between my hands, the contentment of listening to the radio, and the intense gratitude, for once, for being alone. That was probably the best time of my life in my teens, that day and night spent with my knitting and the radio.
It was the beginning of the middle of a long car trip, and I was jammed in the back seat with my sibling and great aunt, Ize the Storyteller. I had heard most of her stories before, so I hauled out my knitting and tried not to stab anyone. Then Ize, who had come from Scotland in 1911, grabbed my hands. “I can’t stand this anymore!” she said. Then she showed my how to throw without taking my right hand off the needle. That weekend, at her daughter’s lake house, she taught me to make the “family” baby booties. We are now on our fourth generation of babies who have worn these little socks.
As someone who takes knitting with me everywhere I go, I have many fond memories of vacations, be it bareboat sailing with my family or hiking to high mountain lakes where my husband fly fishes and I knit, taking breaks long enough to snap a photo of his catch.
I remember my first sweater, an older co-worker taught me about cables and I was off, never giving imperfecton a second thought. Where or where did I lose that courage?
I have many fond memories of “making” during week long trips with my mom and sisters to the John C. Campbell folk school in Brasstown, NC. Over the years we took classes in fabric painting, enameling, quilting, rug hooking and more.
So many places… First, really before true memories, upstairs in our old house (where my parents lived for 40 years) watching my mom sew, and looking at her beautiful fabrics. She made all her New Years Eve gowns back when that was a thing – she always looked so glamorous! There wasn’t much money, so she chose fabric for those gowns carefully, and conserved every scrap of fabric. She also sewed clothes for us kids of course, and mended everything. I don’t sew much, but my mom gave me her knack for using things efficiently with as little waste as possible and repurposing when possible. I still have quilts her mother made with scraps from clothes she made for my mom and sisters. My mom is 93 and is still making quilts 🙂
My mother taught me to embroider, knit and sew. As a teenager, I made so many of my own clothes on a Kenmore sewing machine that sat atop a table that also doubled as her improvised vanity. As a little girl, weekend visits to my sweet grandmother’s house always included a saturday afternoon walk to the local “five and dime,” where Nana would hand my sisters and I each a $1 bill to spend on anything we desired. I ALWAYS made a bee-line to the counter full of Red Heart yarn, and spent the rest my visit with her making a scarf for my doll, (I always packed my mothers aluminum knitting needles in my suitcase to have ready.)
Now my happy place is my craft room, where I sew, embroider, mend, create scrapbooks, knit—- and attempt to keep my stash under control. A comfy “mama bear” chair there is the spot to create, read, dream and pray. I am blest.
The first yarn shop I ever set foot in, where I learned to knit, and where I eventually ended up working and teaching.
My friend’s house in the country with sunlight, lots of yarn and great chairs. We gathered and knitted and the created wonderful food
making “ugly sweater” cookies with my knitting group one christmas
Learning to throw pottery at LaMoyne gallery in Tallahassee in the 1970s.
There were always crafty things happening at home when I was growing up in the 60s & 70s: needlepoint, embroidery, covering L’eggs pantyhose eggs with fabric & rickrack for Easter & Christmas ornaments, making huge crepe paper flowers, painting, sewing & Girl Scout crafts of all kinds. For some reason I only learned to knit in my late 40s during one of my mom’s visits at Christmas, and it became my favorite activity after that.
Since childhood, I have been always trying to keep my hands and mind occupied with some creative challenge. Early on, at a summer house in Whitehouse, NJ, I was taught by a friend of my Mom’s how to do hairpin lace. Oh the many wraps I made!
Sewing as my Mom taught me in our “mud room” sewing area, Such special memories and so many beautiful projects!
I never thought I could make anything good when I was a kid
Making Barbie doll clothes while sitting at the sewing machine on my mother’s lap is a treasured memory. The machine was on a tiny table in the hall by the bathroom in our apartment. Getting into the bathroom (our only one) was not actually possible if someone had the machine set up. That spot in the hall holds many of my most treasured making memories.
I sewed curtains with my mom and grandmother at my grandmother’s dining table for our first apartment after I was married. I have a very terrible photo of us at the three sewing machines in my office to remind me every day.
Starbucks near where I lived where I went to my first Stitch N B****h group. We stayed together for a few years, but most importantly we stood with each other through weddings, births, deaths, breakups…difficult sweater constructions, detangling mohair situations, failed socks…
They were my first sisterhood, and I will remember them always
I have three; it’s too hard to choose among them. First, in my childhood home, learning to sew by making doll clothes on a treadle machine, and later making my clothes with my mother. Second, the Empty Spools Quilting Seminars at Asilomar in California, a week of sharing and inspiration. And third, the Yarn Overs knitting group in my new neighborhood, where I’m making new friends.
I’ve always been a creative soul. I draw, & paint plus I make pottery. But my favorite making piece was a macrame/braided leather bridle. It has taken me a long time to learn to knit but now 30 years later I’ve finally got the knack.
Teaching my granddaughters to knit and crochet and sew–sometimes at my house, sometimes at their house, but always trying to do a project together when we have time together.
While in high school I received a kit to make a red wool all over cabled long sleeve pullover. I remember spending hours knitting on the stairs of my mother’s home. I finished it in time to wear to school the first day back from break!
There are four of us in our “Sisters” group. We are not sisters, but we wish we were, and do we have some fun! Any place where these women are is my favorite place. When we get together about every 6 weeks or so, we knit, quilt, embroider, draw, dye, giggle and hoot, and have a great pot luck lunch. We put some money in a box and use that to celebrate big events–our 60th birthdays are all done, so now saving up for the 70th birthdays. We met over 25 years ago, when we each had a small one in the kindergarten class in our town, and we’ve been meeting ever since. It’s hard, but we chose to make it work because we love being makers, love the inspiration we get from one another, and love being makers together.
The breezeway at the house I grew up in, in Queenston ON. You could be “outside” but sheltered from bugs and the direct sun or, even better, a massive thunderstorm. I would paint in there for hours and later on would make friendship bracelets.
Playing, sunning, swimming, building sand castles, and lots of laughter, on the shores of Lake Michigan. I was so fortunate to have this lovely place in my little home town. Still my favorite place, and it’s colors.
Sitting at my was-once-a-dining-room-table-but-hello-crafting-space because a Dire Need to Make arose. After decades of saving anything paper or paperish (think dried leaves, madrone tree bark, wasp’s nests), I finally began using the old arty calendars & swanky linings of posh paper bags & funny labels with alligators on them.
This was no coincidence: I had a major job burnout resulting in a health crisis. I couldn’t throw all my mojo at work anymore. I had no job, & barely had mojo. So I began collaging. A dear friend who was a retired art therapist told me collaging was a special kind of therapy, often done when one needs to put broken things back together & make something new from the shards.
Ann Shayne, if anyone can make something happen from a dream, it’s (all of us) YOU too! Best of luck on getting more makers together for maximum Good Times. Most of my family is in Birmingham, & when this pandemic thing slacks up I will be in your neighborhood. I can already see myself heading north on I-65…
My favorite place is my chair, in front of the TV (or actually the computer now adays) on a blustery winter day. I’m covered with a handmade afghan, a hot cup of tea to my right, and knitting in my hands. Looking out the window at the snow and cold I snuggle in, smile, take a sip, and knit.
Making Christmas tree decorations with my mother out of fabric scraps and metallic rickrack. I still have them 45 years later, and I still love them!
Sitting and learning at a very young age to knit by my grandma. We always used a purple ball of yarn.
York, England, in 1976 remains my favorite knitting place.
I’m always reminded of my Auntie who lived in Teaneck NJ she was like Martha Stewart (before I knew about Martha it was the 1970’s) she gave me the love of crafting and gardening and the art of making and when I grew up I kept that with me and taught my children the love of making!
Making pot holders on a square metal frame..wondering where the loopy things I used came from!
My mother’s house when I was expecting my first child. I wanted to make a quilt, so my mom and one of her friends helped me to learn to make my very first quilt..
Most evenings even now as I try to stop rug hooking, telling my husband, I’M ALMOST DONE WITH THIS PART… Same if I happen to be crocheting…JUST ONE MORE ROW… Then Seinfeld comes on…
I love knitting and making baskets in my yard during the summer where it gets up to 65 and in my house with a fire going in the winter. The recent isolation of the past several years has meant materials spread all over the place and no time wasted on housework.
Every time that we went long distance in the car I would take my knitting. One day my hubby asked me why I did that. So the next time I didn’t take any with me and it took us almost an hour longer to get where we going. When we got settled in our motel, he asked me what was wrong that day. Well we talked and realized that I had to potty 3 times more than the last time we took this way, I was bored and I talked way more than usual, and because I was bored I wanted to stop and get snacks or food. The very next trip he came towards me with my knitting bag. He wasn’t trying to be mean, he actually kidding me and I had taken it farther than he meant to. But never again did he kid me about always having knitting in my hand.
During the summer of 2011 I spent many hours knitting outdoors under a pine tree looking out over the inlet surrounding the grounds of my co-op. I was happily knitting all manner of baby items for the impending birth of our granddaughter.
The Weaving Workshop on Diversey Avenue in Chicago in the late 80’s, early 90’s. Sadly it is no longer there or anywhere that I know of. It was there in the storefront, surrounded by quality yarn, that I expanded my knitting skills and learned new techniques in class after class lead by the most patient instructors on the planet. Thanks for jogging my memory, Ann. It’s nice to live there again, even for a little while.
My mom taught me to sew, and I made a lot of my own clothes in Jr high and high school. I learned to knit in Girl Scouts, and I learned to crochet along the way, but it all went on hold when I moved to DC for my work. Twenty years later we moved back home to California, I retired, and on a fishing trip to Alaska with my hubby and another couple, Cathy reintroduced me to crochet. I bought a hook and some yarn in town, and when we headed out to our fishing camp at a rented US Forest Service cabin in the wilderness, we made hats for our husbands and ourselves. We didn’t have any patterns, but Cathy showed me everything I had forgotten, and I haven’t quit knitting and crocheting ever since. Thank you Cathy!! (And we caught lots of salmon, too. The guys smoked the daily catch to preserve it for the week, and then we took it home and froze it.) How I loved those summer trips – and how I appreciate Cathy’s contagious enthusiasm for crochet!
My mother teaching me sew on the machine tucked in the corner of the dining room.
Ruth
My Mom’s kitchen, my home ec class, my college dorm room, my own yarn room. All have played a big part
At Brownies camp, in the 60’s…making Sit-Upons!
Loved making sit upon!
My earliest memories of making was with my mom, starting with McCalls paper dolls, pressing leaves, making candles, and of course, knitting. Whenever my mom found a new craft, she and I would dive right in. Some of my fondest memories.
I had bronchitis many years ago and to keep myself from smoking I knit a zippered jacket out of different colored yarn. 1 front was 1 color, the other side a different color, back another color and the sleeve even more colors. I called it my jacket of many colors and I wore it for years loving every minute of it!
Making just about ANYTHING with my Grandmother, my Nanny… from crochet blankets for teddy bears and puppies to chicken noodle soup and cinnamon toast to canned cherries and Angel food cake to needle point Christmas gifts to gardens filled with peony and lavender ❤️… her hands were magical… she could “make” ANYTHING and did
Sitting next to the tall grass on a working farm in what was then (1970s) a very rural part of Brittany. (Now mostly housing developments and shopping centers…). I was working for the family that own the farm, and, in down time at the end of the day, the mother in the family and I would knit together. I hadn’t knitted in several years, and she couldn’t stand idle hands, so she put a pair of needles in mine. I haven’t put them down since. She and I share a birthday, as it turns out, and, for my 60th, my husband took me and our sons to the farm to spend the occasion with her. I took her an Estonian-style shawl I made for her 80th. (I’ve come a long way since the 70s — in all kinds of ways!)
I have fond memories of my Dad’s work space. Initially his hobby was pottery. He would let us make things with his clay while he did his thing. Then he began woodworking. If we drew pictures and provided measurements he would create amazing items. I miss him.
When my kids were small, three of my best friends, who also had young children, would come over once a week to hang out in my cozy basement. I would serve a sweet treat and each person would work on their own craft – sewing, quilting, cross stitch, and scrapbooking while sharing parenting stories. A couple of us have since learned to knit but it’s been many years since we’ve gathered together to create.
As a teen, I wasn’t the best student. It drove my parents crazy. I had trouble concentrating. But making something… I could work for hours. knitting, crocheting, making wool bowls, sewing: No problem concentrating there!
I fondly remember when the local newspaper covered my soapmaking business.
My fondest memory of making is a hard one to pick the best one so I have a few. My moma teaching all three of us girls to knit. Just having that time together is special, next one is crafting with my two nieces and teaching the older one to knit last year!! Now the youngest one wants me to learn!!
The farm. Where all the extended family goes to be at peace.
I was newly married and moved from Ohio to Dallas Texas away from family. In a new large city and not knowing anyone I started teaching myself to knit. I decided to knit an afghan for my Mother as a Christmas gift. I managed to finish it and sent it off.
My Mother is now 100 …still has that afghan in pristine condition at the foot of her bed to warm her feet. I feel honored.
Childhood when living in Rhodes Greece. Making kites with fresh cut bamboo and kite paper Talking Greek with my 5 year old Greek children and in a very happy place
Summers, knitting on the porch of my going blind friend who was also knitting away! ….laughing at how, blind or not, stitches fall off needle tips and hide away…
My home growing up. My mother taught me to sew. First thing I made was an apron. Even though she didn’t teach me to knit, I learned to sew from her. Home.
Making Barbie homes among our living room end tables on a summer afternoon. Then pretending to be an architect, drawing up various floor plans for all my future homes. Btw, I already have the book and thoroughly endorse it. A true gem for sure. If I win I have two worthy recipients to choose from for gifting.
Many memories watching my mom knit everything from hats to argyle socks when I was child. She tried many times to teach me but I just was coordinated to get it. Shortly after Mom passed away I purchased a pair of knitting needles and yarn and taught myself to knit …and 13 yrs later..I am still knitting daily! Ah..the comfort of knitting.
I am sitting on a sofa, in a chair, or even on a bed in a hotel room knitting with my sister – a small slice of heaven on earth!
The Wednesday Group.. The five of us met to knit, share our thoughts and problems, find answers, and to celebrate our joys. And eat muffins.
With my mom and sisters we made Christmas angels from magazines, spray paint, doilies, a styrofoam ball, a pipe cleaner and yarn.
My grandmother’s house. She was the first person who taught me how to make. I remember sitting on her sofa crocheting and knitting for hours.
Knitting with the Fabewes.
My knitting friends invited me to a yoga and knitting retreat hosted by the wonderful and talented Allison Adams. I was in for knitting for sure but not so sure about the yoga! To my surprise I was an instant convert with another amazing teacher, Kquvien DeWeese. The connection to me is about practice. Both knitting and yoga share the joy of the moment. Being present to delight and sometimes to fondly curse what is in your hands – whether it’s your art, your craft or yourself! Both are practices where the destination is not really the point. The beauty is the path and all its twists and turns and surprises and the wonder of making and remaking our projects and ourselves. Thanks for a great place for making.
I think of my Italian grandmother who never learned to speak English. She made- knit- the most wonderful baby hats and sweaters while she quietly remained out of any conversation. And they were all made from Gray wool. I often think now of where did she get her yarn- who bought it for her and why was it always and only gray? Is that why gray is one of my favorite colors? She made lasting and gorgeous items that we wore in the cold upstate NY winters.
I worked for several years for Bob Brown, an extraordinary puppeteer and puppet maker. Although I technically worked as an admin, I also spent many hours in the workshop watching, and sometimes assisting, artisans make & costume puppets and create props and scenery–turning often unlikely bibs and bobs into works of arts.
I hated going away to camp. An only child, I loved being alone, but my parents worried about me needing more friends, so off to a summer off sand, trees and jellyfish. And worse, I was not supposed to read, due to eyestrain.
It was horrible!
Then finally we had craft period, and the joy began any time it was allowed. Think of it as a makers space without any tech. Tile- craft, copper, pottery lanyards, I tried them all. And each project took me away from the real world. Did I mention the jellyfish. I think my love of making began in that old barrack’1s building that summer.
My favorite place to “make” right now is out on my lanai by the pool. It’s a screen-in enclosure in the Sarasota, FL area. I have a lovely view of a pond. Weather permitting, that is where you can find me.
My summers in the Pennsylvania mountains at Lighthouse Art and Music Camp, where I got to experience many different kinds of visual and performing arts.
setting up a table of craft materials and watching my mother and little niece make crafts together. Growing up, my mom was too busy to stop and do crafts with me, but as a grandmother she found she really loved it, and I loved preparing everything for them both and seeing what they came up with.
Taking my first knitting class in Colorado with a woman who has now become my mentor and lovely friend
My nana teaching me to knit. I can’t wait to teach my daughter!
I have many makers in my family (knitter, weaver, sculptor, cook, etc.) – but I think my most fond memory is sitting cozily with my children on a winter evening, with each working on a fiber craft that fit their ages and abilities at the time. For once, I managed to get a photo of this, and while not a very beautiful photo, it is a very dear one in my memories.
I learned how to knit from my Aunt Harriet, at the age of maybe 5? By 7 or 8 I was knitting Barbie dresses, in the round, on size US4 needles. Who knew it was supposed to be hard??? That was over 50 years ago.
When I lived on Hilton Head Island in the 70s, before it had a highway running through it, I rented a house near the beach at the south end. Many days I spent in the screened in porch painting scenes on sand dollars and creating mobiles. It was a very peaceful and centering time. I love going there in my mind during stressful times to revisit the soft breezes and the smell of the ocean…
When I was about 10, moms from a group of friends organized a 4H group where we learned various skills that included sewing, cooking, and crafting. I still have my first sewing project, an apron in navy blue and a daisy pattern trimmed with happy yellow ric-rac. We also hemmed a linen towel and then modeled the apron with the towel draped over our arms in the annual 4H fashion show. Part of the 4H experience included taking our crafted/baked items to be judged and displayed in the annual Armada Fair (Michigan) where are you were awarded ribbons and possibly selected for “state show” later held at Michigan State University. One of my state show “winners” was an almost 3-foot high candle holder contraption made of pickle and relish jars, assembled in descending order of size, decorated with glued-on yarn designs, then painted avocado green and “antiqued” with a dark brown stain. It was topped with a round piece of plywood with a nail that impaled the chunky candle on top. Very trendy and cool at the time. While I carried it across campus to the display area, the glue between the sections gave way and most of my jars shattered on the sidewalk. But I was able to salvage the top and bottom jars and set up my crippled little project alongside the others. I never went back to retrieve it.
My fondest memories of making are with my girls scout troop as a kid. We made friendship bracelets, “sit-upons”, godseyes, and more. Nothing beats making cool things while outside in nature.
My Sister’s kitchen table in Tacoma, WA. Making bracelets, when my niece, Jaimie, said, “Lernie, (my family nickname), it’s pretty but you need something unexpected.”. She was really young to see that my Libra brain was just too balanced.
My making memory is more bittersweet. Today, because it’s now been nine years since he passed, I remember making a quilt after my father died when my brain could barely process anything other than sewing squares of fabric together. I later gave that quilt to my mother because I worked on parts of it while she was visiting and I knew how much she loved all the fabrics.
This book is inspiring!
My favorite making place is sadly closed. Drygoods Design in Seattle. The building was old with huge windows on two sides to watch the goings on in Pioneer square while working.
My Great Aunt Rosa taught me to knit when I was about eight years old. Time spent making things with her in her home will always be a fond memory for me. I hope she knew she was setting me up for a life time of joy, not just with knitting but with “making” of all sorts.
My grandma, helping me make an apron for a life-size doll my mother had sewn me. Grandma let me go through her fabrics and pick whatever I wanted 🙂
My grandmother sitting beside me and very loving assure that all of my stitches were perfect. If not, she’d smile and say you can do better, now lets rip the out.
I learned to knit and do many other crafts around the kitchen table in my grandparents tiny, cozy kitchen. I have so many fond memories of making, baking, learning, and spending wonderful time with my grandmother
Love this article! I need and want this “making a life” book! It right up my alley, love to discover how & what people make. If you don’t win this book, I am wondering if you’d accept a cheque for this book. I don’t use my credit cards online at all. DH & I were burned once and I don’t feel comfortable sharing my financial info online. Thank you for listening to me ramble.
My dearest making memory is when my then 9 yr. old asked me if I could knit her blanket (back to in 2020). Why, yes I could! After a few pertinent questions, GD decided she wanted a Pokémon blanket! After much planning, I made her blanket! I packed it in a lg. box & mailed it to her. She was ecstatic when she rec’d her very own package and loves her blankie
So many good memories of making! Teaching myself to crochet and completing a much-coveted R2-D2 hat (after half a dozen starts and frogs). My first adult ceramics class, and throwing clay on a wheel for the first time since elementary school. Attending my first Wool Gathering and buying crazy amounts of yarn! But more than anything, making meaningful connections with other people, and perhaps more surprisingly, with myself.
A Fond Memory of Making was when I was working on becoming a good potter at the wheel. I recall one day when I took a teapot out of my kiln, all completed, and poured my first cup of tea from it and the spout did not dribble…this is what I had been trying to achieve: a spout that did not dribble. I’d finally gotten it figured out!
My fondest “making” memory is sewing with my mom when I was a child.
Fiber festivals. Magical every year and a wonderful day with friends.
The backseat of our family car when I was a kid, where I would spend the 8-hour drive to my grandparents’ house crocheting a long, continuous chain from an entire skein of Red Heart Super Saver yarn in a color of my choosing, picked just for the trip. When I got through the skein, I’d pull it all out, wind it into a ball, and start over. I loved it!
Last summer I guided my dear life-long friend in making her first few knit stitches. We were on our annual camping trip, and sitting on the beach of a creek. I finished a lace t shirt on that trip. That is the place that comes to mind, even though most of my making is accomplished at home, usually on the couch.
Sitting in my college dorm’s lounge room, watching TV with my friends and knitting a purple cabled hat (instead of doing my homework!)
I do a lot of making, but never in a vacuum. I knit, weave, spin, sew, bead, quilt, draw, sing, arrange flowers… you get the idea. But I do each of these things best when in the company of others. It started with my mom and continues today with beloved friends, Laurie, Sharon, Sue, Lois, Janet, Dorothea, Sheila, Connie, Elizabeth, Teri, Kate…again, you get the idea.
Oh! Art classes as a 4yr old in my smock and leotards. And always, throughout my life, the kitchen table…Maker Central.
My mom taught me to knit. Sometimes we each worked on our own version of the same sweater. Looking back, I think the styles were a little mature for a teenager, but I wish we could be sitting in our living room knitting together today.
There are two places that hold those fond memories for me. One is my high school pottery class, which was somehow both a soothing and invigorating space inhabited by a teacher who really connected with her students and encouraged us to grow in all ways. The other is my beloved great-grandmother’s living room, with her just barely rocking in her chair near the door and commenting in her soft Spanish while my great-aunt patiently taught me to crochet and started me on my way with a bag pattern that was probably intended for much more experienced makers. But she knew I could do it, so I was convinced. Thanks for the moment of reflection!
My mom used to sew when i was growing up. I think she was a little disappointed that i never really wanted to learn. But i always loved sitting on the floor in her sewing room while she sewed. Now that I’m an adult and a knitter i take my knitting with me everywhere, including the Alpine Lakes wilderness in Washington state where i just finished a 5 day backpacking trip.
Time spent at Squam Workshop in New Hampshire. Blissful surroundings and wonderful teachers, classes and students.
The common room in an assisted living residence where our knitting group meets every two weeks.
My earliest memory of “making” are the quilts my grandmother usually had set up on a large frame in her basement. She was a beautiful quilter, and quilted only by hand. I have one of her whole cloth quilts and another that she quilted on an old pieced quilt top made by her mother out of scraps. Treasures.
Our basement in Eagle Rock, my Mom and I sewing, my Dad shooting pool. Thanks for the rewind of favorite hours.
Making Halloween costumes with my dad. He was a teacher who minored in art. He had amazing ideas and included my sisters and in in the creative process. I’d love to have just one more … he was a great man and teacher, and Dad.
My dad helped me make costumes for my high school production of Camelot – he came up with the perfect costumes for King Arthur, and it was so fun making everything together. He was an architect with a great sense of design. Ah, those were fun times. I miss you, Dad.
I have always been a maker I think. Started sewing about age 11 with family encouragement. My older sister taught me and dad bought me a sewing machine. Someone has now played a trick on me and after nearly 70 years my fingers have insisted I change gears and knitting replaced the sewing. So glad that I can enjoy that and continue making. My dad always insisted that I buy good tools and I’ve continued with that philosophy. Makes every project more enjoyable
I’m really sick of the word maker
I don’t remember a time in my life since I was 3 when I wasn’t doing some kind or needlework. It started with sewing, making doll clothes, cutting out paper doll clothes. My mother was a dressmaker who made formal gowns for performers so I had lots of inspiration and materials. At age 6 friend of my mothers taught me embroidery. When she came to visit the next year she taught me to knit and I found my passion. We went to visit her when I was 12 and her daughter had a loom and helped me weave a few shots. My second passion was born. Crochet, tatting, cross stitch, needlepoint, silk painting, needle felting. With the exception of spinning, if it involves fiber I want to give it a try. At 81 I am happy to use the lovely yarns that others have created in such beautiful colors.
This question brought me back to the living room of my childhood home where I used to plop myself down in front of the television set. I generally had some kind of project to work on while watching my favorite show. Often it was cut and paste with colored paper and using my mother’s Duco cement glue, as the Elmer’s glue always seemed to be either lost or empty. One of the most fun things I ever did was to get a little box like a shoe box to use as a “house” and a small doll to live in the house. Instead of a doll, I actually used a Bunny eraser, the type of which was popular at the time. Then, the idea was to find things lying around to use as “furniture” in the house. That’s where creativity came in. It was fun to bring these houses to school to show friends. Since our boxes had lids they were easy to carry back-and-forth.q
My grandmother’s kitchen and my mother’s sewing room. Both were fascinating to me as a child.
I am fortunate to live a couple of towns over from Kristin Nicholas, an author of several books about knitting and designing and creating a lovely and colorful home. She used to occasionally open up the house for people to come and buy her pottery; I’m hoping that starts up again!
Probably the most exciting project I worked on was helping to establish Opera Naples, a community opera production company in Naples FL back in 2005 just after we retired.
My husband Frank and I served on the first Board of Directors. In addition, Frank served as the Business Manager and I was the Office Manager for the first two years. After that I did orchestra contracting for another 2 years as well as serving as Registrar for the Board and doing donor management. Neither of us had any experience in this area but we had strong management backgrounds in other industries. These jobs were challenging in new ways, introduced is to members of our new community and allowed us to make friends at the same time. It all was exhilarating as well as stressful.
When I resigned from management, I fulfilled a life long dream of singing in an opera chorus. This brought new challenges. By the time I left the company I sang in 6 languages and had performed in
11 productions.
During these years zi occupied my free time taking knitting classes on the Craftsy platform learning many new techniques which expanded my knowledge base enough that I have been able to teach others to knit.
The “Art Shack” at the music camp in Vermont I teach at. There is an apple tree just outside it and the sweetfoul scent of fallen fruit and fresh mown grass wafts through the wall of screen windows with each fresh breeze. Every surface is covered in graffiti ranging from the irresistibly predictable to profound, archiving generations of spirits passing through the space. And at night, after frenzied squealing has softened into snores in the kids’ cabins, if you turn the lights on for a second and right back off, you find yourself suddenly floating in outer space thanks to the countless otherwise invisible flecks of glow-in-the-dark paint flung in every direction, the shadow of the creaky pottery wheel in the corner, assiduously guarding the secrets of the first kisses it has witnessed, drunk midnight madrigals wending around the hillside from a staff party in the distance… “Since first I saw your face I resolved, to honour and renown ye… no, no, no, my heart is fast and cannot disentangle… where beauty moves and wit delights, and signs of kindness bind me…there oh there! Where’re I go, I‘ll leave my heart behind me.”
As a military spouse who moves every 1-3 years, one of my first quests at a new duty station is finding a LYS. It is where I find my people. When I can’t find a space I create one and one of my favorites was in Kansas. Every Thursday evening a group of us would gather at my house at 8:00 – after dinner was done and the kids were asleep – and we would craft. We had knitters, crocheters, sewists, coloring book colorers, and so much laughter. One night we gathered around the piano and sang Handel’s “Messiah”. Another we brought sewing machines and attempted to make rope bowls. It was a precious group of creators, plopped in the same space for a mere ten months, and we made memories for a lifetime.
My Nan taught me to sew and embroider. I remember being so excited working on a tiger picture when I was about 6 that I stitched it directly onto my dress. I ran in crying with the hoop banging against my legs. She fixed me up and I learned that things can be redone and it’s no big deal when you make a mistake while creating.
Writing and making classes with Joni Chancer in Santa Barbara. She is a gifted teacher and creator, but not, alas, a knitter — at least as far as I know.
I fell in love with the Granny Attic of my current Home the moment I walked up the stairs … the ceilings are not quite tall enough but just right at the same time with a cocoon like feeling. It brought up feelings of when I was a child and my Mom and Dad would always be making something – they were resourceful Yankees and encouraged me to make anything I could put my mind to.
The first memory is when my grandmother taught me to put nails in a wooden spool..and I learned how to do an icord and turn it into placemats for the kitchen table..then she taught me how to use a Bobby pin to make placemats with the thin cotton yarn..I got to pick out pink and my edges came out curly ..it was so beautiful..I think I was like 12 back then..
Growing up, my grandparents lived in the upstairs flat. My grandmother, “Honeygirl” was a maker. She sewed in an attic space with an angular roof. My dad hung an adjustable light over her sewing machine. I learned to sew on her treadle machine, finishing a ticking shift dress for school in the fifth grade. That sewing corner and kitchen where I learned sewing and baking Italian cookies are early memories of a maker’s honored space.
I have come to Fiber Camp in Medomak three times. Each time has been magical.
My fondest memory is when I was not a knitter yet, but my mother’s friends would come over for help deciphering a pattern they didn’t understand. My mother would read it then help them and/or make a swatch of what it should look like in crochet. Then we would have some luscious dessert someone brought. My favorite part of their visits.
Lots of great memories of a knitting group that formed before the Covid Lockdowns – we did Zoom meetings and but had much joy when we could meet in person again!
Learning to sew with my mother and many hours at the fabric store looking at fabrics and patterns with her.
I think of my dining room table, completely covered with all things beadwork, getting ready for a sale event.
A fond memory of making: my first Shakerag Retreat in 2019!
I did macramé as a young girl. It’s cool that it’s hip again. ☺️
Cherish moments, the times my Mom spent with me teaching me to knit, crochet, sew and embroider and all the encouragement she gave me. And then years later my passing my knowledge & skills to my daughter.
i have had many hobbies during my life. i have taken cooking classes, pottery classes and stained glass classes. And knitting, i have probably taken 8 sock classes and they still elude me, but i can make dandy leg warmers. Knitting and crocheting bring joy. Almost everything is a gift and i love that part of fiber arts.
My favourite place to learn various crafts is An Grianán http://www.an-grianan.ie here in Ireland. Great memories of weekends spent with sisters and friends.
G Street Fabrics in Washington, D.C. It was a rickety, multistory old wooden building that had been there forever, and there was a whole floor with just buttons and findings. I can smell it still.
Doing crafts all afternoon at a festival with creative makers from Japan and we did not have one word of common language between us–we communicated with our hands and gestures and by literally making, all manner of beautiful crafts. The workshop leaders were delighted to be able to teach without words, as I was delighted to learn without words. One of the happiest afternoons of my life so far.
Knitting a cardigan in Madrid while studying there. I’d never knit a sweater or anything in Spanish but that’s what I was in Spain for, Wasn’t I?
My memory of making comes from sewing dresses for 4-H projects on my mom’s sewing machine.
I suppose my first ‘maker’ activity was sewing. When I was about 12, I mentioned an interest in sewing. My grandmother told my mother to buy me a sewing machine and I spent my high school years sewing most of my clothes and doing occasional knitting. After HS I pretty much stopped sewing but haven’t stopped ’making.’ I have done needlepoint, cross stitch, rubber stamping (still do that). I went back to knitting about 20 years ago when my daughter started knitting in college. Haven’t stopped knitting since and love it the most!
I fondly remember my mom, a right hander, teaching me, a left hander, how to knit. I never did learn to hold the needles exactly like her but I have been able to keep on knitting for over 40 years.
The summer camp I attended had a loom house with many large floor looms, a silver smith shop where you could make jewelry and so many other creative options. When I think of the new possibilities I faced every summer, how could that not be my happy place!
No one particular place, but many. Going into wonderful fabric stores and seeing all the beautiful fabrics that use to be readily available, then sitting down to peruse the pattern catalogs and dream
Making doll clothes as a child with my Grandma. She could fashion a pattern from any photo! And often did, if it didn’t work the way we wanted it to, we’d adjust and try again. It was always fun to be with her, and I learned a lot about how to be in life also!
My moms sewing room has always been an inspiration. From quilts to project bags for our knitting, we keep our hands busy and our hearts light. ❤️
I have a craft room where I like to knit, scrapbook and make cards. Peaceful place.
2 places inspired me on my lifetime journey of making. Joining 4h at an early age and learning a multitude of crafts from one very talented teacher. Having the opportunity to live at the beach for my summers growing up and to be creative in nature with my likewise friends.
My pup, Gayle, had been diagnosed with cancer. They took her right front leg and she began chemo. She became bound to the main level of our house, so that became my level as well. I stayed by her side for two plus years, knitting socks. Day and night, I knitted socks. Her bravery through the struggles was my inspiration. Tap, tap, tap my needles worked. I still think of her with every stitch.
I think about Volksmarches in Germany. After a long walk through the woods, knitting would relieve the swelling in my hands. I really enjoy knitting while traveling, looking forward to car trips when I’m not the driver.
A “barn loft” in a friend’s shed growing up. The friend was a creative mastermind and she would lead me and another friend in all sorts of imaginative play. We would spend hours up there sewing dolls and clothes, making origami, cross stitching, etc.
Rhinebeck, of course!
Rinny Ryan, a beautiful woman and potter, living in the palmetto scrub of Florida, has an enchanting pottery studio and home where she makes useful plates, mugs, and art. When a brush fire destroyed some of her property around her studio, she transformed those blackened pine trees into regal tiled thrones to watch and wonder at the flora and fauna returning with new life. Magical!!!
I learned to sew as a teenager and I can still remember the sewing closet that opened up next to the upright piano where I also practiced for piano lessons. I would sew and my sister would practice the piano next to me.
St. Andrews-Sewanee! And Camp Wahaneetah of course
My mother’s workroom, before she went back to school and it became more of her office. By the time it turned back into a workroom, I was out of the house and on my own.
Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp – a place to see friends, new and old. I ALWAYS come away filled with inspiration!
I think of the hours I spent working in the theater at my high school. We built the sets, worked on costumes, and for one play I was in charge of making wigs for the cast.
Teaching my 5-y-o son to knit during a blizzard. We were snuggled up on the couch, dog sleeping at our feet. He ended up making me a scarf that was about 4 inches wide and 18 inches long. Of course I wore it!
Camp Onawanda in Tunkannock, PA. Seven years old making covered hangers for my mother. Still have three of them 67 years later.
As an aside, I’ve realized that makers believe in a future (bright or not) in which they or others will wear, use, or look at what has been made. Otherwise why make it.
My friend Jane’s basement. We would get together there—sometimes just the two of us, sometimes all four of the group we call the Crazy Ladies—to dye and print our own quilting fabric. Somebody would find out about a technique, and we would have to get together to try it, and Jane had a wonderful, large studio space. Some of us have moved, including Jane, but we still do a monthly Zoom.
Making Barbie shawls with knitting needles my grandfather made from hangers.
Honestly, sitting on my hospital bed, needles engaged in a lace shawl. I was so happy to knit during multiple 6-week stays recovering from chemo and, later, a bone marrow transplant. Knitting helped me be patient and feel like myself, enjoying the making and the yarn and the shawl(s) on my needles.
The Craft Cabin at Girl Scout camp as a kid. It was the first time I’d seen so many different kinds of craft supplies, and tables set up just to sit at and make things.
The messy kitchen table of the crowded house of the 1980s. I never had a space of “my own” due to siblings and cousins who lived with us but I could defend my meal spot on the kitchen table and it would be respected, worked around for all other purposes. The cuttings from magazines for collage, the leaves and plant life for study, the embroidery floss for bracelets and the bits of yarn, fabric and clay for experimenting. Watercolor and colored pencils aside the forks and spoons.
Place that comes to mind is sitting in my friend’s backyard. A very peaceful place for conversation and knitting
Summer time, embroidery with my aunt Beth in my grandfathers house in the mountains of Sardinia.
Art classes at my high school. Our school was originally built with the open classroom concept and so the different parts of the art department sort of flowed together even though they’d built walls by the time I was there. I learned so much, including weaving!
Home. It’s where my Mom first taught me to knit, sew and bake. It’s still the place I do most of my making.
Learning from my grandfather who always figured out a work a round. He taught me to be inventive and “figure it out”
Making my grandmother a knit sweater which I inherited when she died. It was special making it & now wearing it
My favorite came to mind instantly. When I was 17 and my leaving my parents home for college, for adventures and adult life….my mother bought the two of us painting lessons that summer before senior year. I’m sure it was to cement a bond she hoped would bring me home periodically. It changed my life, and now I look back at 60 years of being an artist, knitter, and maker of so many things. The seventh anniversary of her passing is Monday, so thank you for, kick starting those memories.
About 15 years ago, my Mom and I would take quilting classes together. My favorite memory was a weekend long quilting seminar on Whidbey Island. We drove up together and stayed at my Aunt’s house. The seminar was amazing and we decided to use our quilt squares for a quilt for my sister. My Mom has since passed away but the quilt we made is proudly displayed at my sister’s house.
Mostly on my own in my room, crocheting doll clothes and crewelwork kits, and sewing my own clothes!
Most memorable place for making: Haystack School of Crafts on Deer Isle in Maine. No place better.
Sitting and learning to knit and crochet with my Grandmother on her front porch during my Summer “vacations” at her house. (She lived 15 minutes away from us but it was a whole world away!) I can still see her hands in mine when I work on a beautiful project!
Right now, one of my favorite places to knit is with a friend or two. I used to get away from it all under a tree on my back deck and in a wicker rocking chair in my fiber room.
Weaving four placemats on a full size floor loom back in 1977 at Bay of Fundy National Park. We were camping and I was so excited to discover that they had looms available for visitors to use! I’d always wanted to make something on a loom!
At the top of the steps at my grandparent’s house was an open area where my grandmother’s treadle machine sat. She spent countless hours sewing on that machine – my grandfather added a motor at some point. She didn’t sew while we were there (she was in the kitchen making a meal for a crowd) but we were on the receiving end of her labors. All eight of her granddaughters remember with great pleasure the new flannel nightgowns we got each year for Christmas. I also have a quilt made on that machine. Such wonderful memories!
I finally have my own craft room, which is my favorite place to be. I feel happy just thinking about it.
Sitting in a shady park, knitting and chatting with friends.
Almost any place where I was absorbed in making something was a happy place. Making teeny objects from play dough at the kitchen table, savoring the colors in the big box of crayons, watercolor class, knitting in the cockpit of a sailboat anchored in early morning watery stillness, knitting while escaping into an audio book…
It’s my fond hope to get a peek at MDK HQ this fall. I’ll be on a long road trip from the west coast and Nashville is on the itinerary for the first days of October. And if my timing doesn’t coincide with a hoedown at HQ, maybe I’ll meet y’all at Rhinebeck. Does it sound like this road trip has a yarn thread running through it?
I have a Tiffany lamp I built. I turn it on every day. I remember the making of this lamp because it coincided with a very hard time in my life…and still I have a Tiffany lamp I built…and it is stunning!
Making to me can be a special place I create no matter where I am. When I think about my memories that I have related to making, the one that comes to mind is knitting on my moms couch. I had just learned to knit and was also a newly graduated RN. I was knitting before my shift to relax and pass time. I can still remember what I was knitting a scarf. And I still have the scarf ☺️
Knitting on the beach after the lifeguards have gone home and everyone else is leaving for dinner. Nicest time of day.
I think of the UFO Retreats which our local knitting guild used to host at a small lodge in a nearby small town in Wisconsin. We knit on our ufo’s all weekend hoping to finish some, and a good time was had by all!
My little corner with a table and my yarn stores is my maker space and my happy place.
Making a doll house for my Ginny Doll out of a cardboard box and anything I could find to make the furnishings. For example an empty wooden thread spool for a lamp base and a cupcake paper liner for the shade. Totally out of proportion? Yes, but I was kid and it didn’t matter.
One of my favorite memories is when I was around 9 or 10, sitting with my Grandma attempting painting on small canvases Bob Ross style. She had some funny little “Learn to Paint Landscapes” types of books that we would use for basic instruction. She actually became quite good, me not so much.
While an interning teacher, away from my home in a town where I initially knew no one, I spent weekends teaching myself to bake bread. This was long before the Internet and I had only one thin book with a little bit of instruction and some extremely good recipes to rely on—and no one to reach out to for advice. As I learned to be a very good baker and developed a passion for bread baking that I have passed to my children, I relished the process as well as the product. There is nothing like creating a beautiful dough and enjoying the mouth-watering result. Such happy memories!
I can think of so many places, knitting in coffee shops, crafting at home, at girlguides camps, community classes, and there is one thing in common. The WINDOW! I like to be beside the window when I’m making. I think its partly for the light, but also to stay connected with the rest of the world just a bit…
Ooh I’m so lucky to have recently outfitted a fun space on a little street in town for art and making. I call it the Makers Welcome Place. I’m looking forward to sharing time with other makers there this fall and winter (right now, we’re all too busy enjoying the short-but-precious Pacific NW summer outdoors).
Girl Scout camp—lots of crafty time!
Making friends while knitting — a double “make” for a hesitant, shy woman. I was real new to knitting and I’m take a project to work with me to work on during lunch break. And while concentrating on my knitting, and being thrilled with its progress (and mad at myself for those inevitable mistakes!) I became friends with folks around me, drawn in by my craft and determination.
A small shop in San Francisco in the 70s that offered many different fiber classes. I learned to handle a fleece, card, spin, & use the wool to weave a very small Navajo style mat. I managed 25 weft threads per inch! Unlike the 200 threads per inch in a “real” Navajo weaving.
The home economics room at Sparta High School. It was there that I learned how to knit. Miss Anne Sullivan also tonight is crochet, embroidery, crewel work. Can’ crochet to save my life, but the rest has stuck with me
As a child I was in 4-H and during the summer we would go to the grange hall and sew on our project all day. It was such fun. I also remember the crafts at 4-H camp. My favorite part!
Going to fabric stores with my grandmother and picking out fabric for projects and buttons.
Might be a cliché, my happy place for “making” is my LYS. The discovery of a place where strangers share a common passion for making items from different items was so amazing!!
Learning to knit so very slowly at 14 with my friends from 4H. Drawing in grade school and seeing faces and eyes as they are, not circles. Learning to crochet from a coworker and making granny squares for my first daughter’s baby blanket. Great crafty memories.
When they were younger, I would pick a craft for the kids to make at Christmas. It was always something they could customize. Sitting with them and crafting, while seeing them all hard at work, peaceful with a table full of craft supplies…that’s my fondest memory.
Knitting at my grandmother’s knee; needlepoint in a square of sunshine while my mother used a sewing machine nearby; and cross-stitch with my young daughters–Making is so often commented to family for me!
Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp. I’ve been attending camps and workshops since 2007. Meg is so inspiring and lovely, as is everyone on her “team.” And I love being with fellow knotters.
The ‘place’ that comes to my mind that’s all about ‘making’ is one many are familiar with: grandma’s house. I call myself a hobbyholic and I didn’t realize until later in life that she was, too. She painted – oils, acrylics, and later, watercolors. She taught me how to crochet and sew; she took classes to put on acrylic nails; she learned to paint rocks and things; she excelled in photography (Gram seemed to have a computer and a digital camera before most everyone!). She cooked and baked and made her own greeting cards. She was inspirational and certainly what ‘made’ the maker in me.
Easy!! The Fiber works Studio in Chestnut Ridge, NY!! I did their year Sheep to Shawl program… not just one moment… but one Saturday for 9 months…spinning dyeing painting!! Inspires me still!
My making journey began with a beloved nanny who taught me how to sew a button. Little me was amazed that a needle and thread could save my favorite pjs! My grandma passed along to me her embroidery she no longer worked and taught me to crochet, which led several years later to learning to knit from a church lady. I now have a collection of craft supplies that rivals my spouses tool collection…
My home in AZ is where my fondest memories come to mind. I know sounds boring, but we moved here 12 years ago and every summer my two young grandchildren spend several weeks with us swimming, hiking, horseback riding and mainly just hanging with us. Then every Christmas they come back to spend the holiday in a warmer climate than the cold blustery Wisconsin winter provides. Theses have been the best years ever! Things are soon changing as my grands are now teens (one a year away from college) and the family got a dog, my son promoted at work but now not able to choose vacation time as easily, and my daughter-in-law now has a full time job. All of which mean travel is getting tricky. So we’ll have to do more of the traveling part soon, but I have loved spending time with my family and the memories it makes.
So many fun memories of making but two that stick out are clay lessons at a neighborhood horse barn and my elementary school art class.
My mother had a permanent sewing room and my grandmother’s machine could be up and ready to go on a moment’s notice too. Both afforded me the space to be creative and make things in the snippets of time after school and before dinner. It makes a difference that the equipment is readily available. They were both also knitters and always had something on the go. Since COVID displaced my physical opportunities to connect, I now connect virtually with two knitting ga friends who do not live in my city. Having a time and place to make is essential!
The library, where knitting classes have been held for over 10 years.
My grandmother gave me a potholder loom and the loops to weave with. I spent hours making potholders and then she would get more loops for me. Also I became very interested in sewing and made clothing in Home Ec. classes. My first project was an A-line skirt.
My sewing room, where I used to make all my own clothes. Such satisfaction!
Joy in making often comes from new crafts for me. Add in wonderful companions and it can’t get much better. A recent late winter weekend on the Oregon coast with my sister and friends learning wire jewelry crafting was exactly what I needed to rejuvenate my maker’s spirit. A fantastic weekend!
I was always making things as a child! I used to paint rocks with my acrylic poster paints and had them set up on a table in the front yard. I was always so mystified why everyone in the neighborhood wasn’t rushing to the door to buy my paperweights. I crocheted often, but rarely finished a project when I was younger. Knitting was taught and learned, but it wasn’t until my adult years that it captivated me and is now pretty much my soul soothing hobby.
Years ago I took a class on French hand sewing and made two baptismal gowns, one for my younger son and one for my nephew. They were beautiful!
This is a hard question to answer. I’ve always loved making things but an early memory was making bread as a child with my sister and my mother. My mother encouraged us to take out any frustration on the bread dough. We had fun doing it in a safe and healthy setting and the resulting bread was light and delicious.
Before our daughter went away to college for the first time we took both the kids on a cruise and I was knitting as we stood in line for the boat drill on the first day out. Apparently I caught the eye of one of the entertainers because he joked about it during the show that evening.
Every quilting retreat, knitting group, and other fiber group that I participated in
The best place for making is The Blue Purl, independent yarn store in Madison, New Jersey. Sitting around the big farm table in the center of the store, knitting, chatting and enjoying the calming and inspiring experience of creating with other makers is the reflection I recall, time and time again.
With deepest gratitude,
Betsy
Learning to knit from my aunt when I was about 8 years old. I remember fondly the pair of yellow mittens with brown thumbs (easier to learn how to do the thumb technique with contrasting colors!). She thought that having something useful would be a good first project. I still jump in with both feet when starting something new.
i guess rhinebeck is the après-making, or perhaps the devant-making, as i shop for the yarn for next year’s rhinebeck sweaterS, but it certainly brings to mind the fondest memories.
Knitting with my youngest daughter at a stitch and pitch baseball game! Perfect moments.
April of this year I had the privilege of spending a w/e with knitters on the edge of Resurrection Bay in Seward Alaska. Lots of making…of knitting and friendships
My grandmother could design her own patterns and sew almost anything after seeing it! The first thing she taught me was embroidery. I was kind of a brat and a tomboy and preferred to be outside. Fast forward—quilting before my kids were born and now knitting since it is more portable. I knit anywhere and everywhere—the car, the gym, coffee shops. Creativity and inspiration are everywhere and crafting is my happy place. So grateful my 13 year old thinks so too!
Does preserving fruit count as making? I have very fond memories of being part of an assembly line with my brother and sister, preparing apricots from a large tree on our farm for canning.
Knitting with my mother who is 92. Started learning to knit with her at her obstetrician’s office visit when I was very young. At 11, went to Knitting class with my mom at Sears. We now sit and make various pieces. We help each other and share our joy of meeting.
Upstairs at my parents’ house…the hallway is the sewing room and my old bedroom is perfect for ironing and cutting. Lucky to live close enough to still go by and use the space!
In St. Clairsville, Ohio, on my grandparents’ porch swing, teaching myself how to cross stitch one summer. The kit came from Harts Department Store. I still have the unfinished piece, tucked away. When I pull it out, I am transported back to the late 1970s, and I can feel the sway of the swing, hear the song of the birds and feel the summer breeze.
My kitchen table was the activity/crafting table for my two daughters and self. We painted, glued, stuffed, read instructions for a myriad of projects. Today both girls have centered in on hobbies as a result of our time together.
At age 8 my Nana patiently teaching me to knit and knit I did anytime anywhere at home around the world. Teaching my daughter at age 8 to knit and creating a knitting bond so intimate and both of us together always having our knitting wip with us for those special moments to pull them out of our bags and knit together and chat about everything wherever we are. Right before covid all of us 6 female family members, all passionate knitters taking a Viking River Cruise for two weeks with a few days in Prague before and Budapest after and besides the normal touring we made yarn shop crawling wherever we were our focus. Supported every local yarn shop and there were about 39 in total by all of us collectively buying local and unique fantabulous yarnie goodness including a train to Wollmeise where we bought so much yarn they gave us a suitcase to haul it back on the train to the boat as well as fed us a lovely lunch. Evenings on the.boat going thru the locks we sat on our balconies admiring our new yar purchases and casting on and knitting socks, shawls and sweaters with just a few. Luckily we brought many interchangeable knitting needle sets plus lots of 9″ circular needles, dpns and long circs for magic loop knitting too. So much yarnie goodness that we shipped home huge boxes as well as filled our suitcases full too. Best trip ever being with loving family from age 20 to 90, enjoying our special time together sharing our love of travel, our love of knitting and yarn shop crawling while exploring the world
It was an honor and a privilege to share it with them
Some of my fond memories of making were of childhood creativity, before I learned to be more critical of my work.
For a few years, my mom and I hosted a knitting/crochet circle at my mom’s house. It started after our LYS had closed; we were still friends with the store’s knitting teacher and when a couple friends said they wanted to learn to knit, we arranged for them to meet at our house to learn. It grew from there, until we had about a dozen people coming once a month. Sometimes we learned new skills as a group, sometimes we did a knit-along, but mostly we hung out and knit. Mom and I (mostly me) would make lunch and snacks. It fizzled out when a newcomer created drama, but Mom and I still talk about starting a yarn store/cafe business because of how much fun we had and how satisfying it was to provide a creative space to others.
My daughter wanted to learn how to knit when she was about 7, so off I went to the library for children’s knitting books. I learned to knit, so I could teach her. She made an odd shaped piece of cloth that she proudly shares as her first piece of knitting. Now she works in a yarn shop and does test knitting. I’m glad she asked to learn how to knit because now we both make knitted objects and clothing. I also helped her develop a knitting project for a math class when she was in elementary school. We’ve enjoyed knitting from the from the MDK field guides, too.
Playing with my Granddaughter. Wonderful!
One of my mother’s very good friends taught me to sew when I was about 10. She seldom used a pattern. I remember being in awe and then she taught me and I was amazed at myself. I knew I could create whatever I wanted.
Art workshops from the San Diego Watercolor Society and the Knitting Retreats offered by the San Diego North Coast Knitters Guild
Because it is pandemic-related, I’m not exactly sure how fond this memory is. However, I have a March birthday, and for my birthday package in 2020, my friend Susanna included a cross stitch kit as well at items related to our shared passion of knitting. From March to June or July, I barely knit. My brain couldn’t handle it, but sewing little Xs? No problem. Cross stitch saved my sanity during those early months of COVID.
I have 11 grandchildren and wanted to do something that would create a family tradition. I knitted a white lace shawl and every time one of my grandchildren gets married, a picture is taken of the bride in her gown wearing the shawl. I am putting together a picture album with each one of the brides in the shawl. My hope is that it will be passed down through the the family.