DORÉ

A note on knitting from our intern, Olivia…

When I was nine-or-so years old, my grandmother taught me to knit. She was always knitting the most immense projects. A lot of times, they were baby blankets for new members of our extended family with complicated stitch patterns woven through them (I still have mine). What she taught my twin sister and I to make were scarves, just rows back and forth of the simple knit stitch; yet somehow our first kitting projects came out looking not like scarves at all but like the wonkiest, zig-zagged, hole-filled, I-don’t-know-whats that you certainly could not wear. We got better over time, though, and I can proudly say that I have even knit a pair of socks in my time (pretty complex). Knitting is one of my favorite activities, though it’s been years since I picked up a project, which was why I was so excited when I met Chelsea Levinson to talk about her business, Knit Wise.

Knit Wise is a subscription knitting program. Think Blue Apron, but for knitting. Basically, it sends you everything you need, each month, to complete a knitting project. This includes the right amount of yarn, needles, and a pattern. She includes video tutorials on her website, and she now includes a beginner crochet option as well. Past projects have included beanies, a cable knit headband, a wine koozy, mittens – they are fun and colorful, and speak to Chelsea’s cute and funky sense of style.

What Chelsea most loves about knitting is that (and I hadn’t thought about this ever before) a. you are really making your own fabric and b. it involves much less waste than any other clothing creation, because you are shaping each piece as you go rather than having to cut away fabric and throw the excess away. She told me that this is why Nike created their FlyKnit collection! So cool! She also loves that it is a relaxing and meditative activity; one that you can do in front of the TV, if the project you’re working on isn’t particularly complicated, but one that can also require a lot of focus and getting into a knitting “zone” that she says a lot of people describe as relaxing. “And yarn, I like yarn,” she adds at the end. She says that in addition to crochet, she is thinking of adding embroidery projects for the summer – lots of fun crafting to be done.