Welcome letter to the 2024 Twisted Purl Hat and Sock Clubs.

A good knitter has a vision of the finished product before she starts, just as a conductor and a choreographer have a vision of the composers work they want on stage. A good knitter knows how to read a pattern by simply glancing at a knitted item. She can look at a garment in a shop window and see the dance, the choreographed sequences of stitches, encoded in it.
—The Power of Knitting: Stitching Together Our Lives in a Fractured World
by Loretta Napoleoni

This idea is one that I really love. It is the culture of creativity that I grew up in. My grandmother Anna could see how something was made in a magazine photo and then create it or she would take a favourite piece of clothing and recreate it. I have always loved this because it gives you the freedom to explore and create beyond what is written on a pattern page. Socks and Hats offer this potential to the new and adventurous knitters. It is my vision that you will allow the structure of the hat and sock to become second nature so you can knit freely exploring the endless opportunity of beautiful yarns.

We have carefully chosen yarns of many different sizes, texture and colours imaging that you will find your dance and story amongst them. With consultation with Louise Everest a passionate sock knitter and explorer of life we have curated a series of patterns and yarns so that you can find the sock heal that is just right for you. There is some lace, cable and colour work and lots of different texture.

Lisa Coombs curated the hat club package. This is an exploration of shape and gauge and different kinds of decreases. There is colour work, lace and just plain good knitting.

I love knitting hats and they have been my way to build The Twisted Purl business. I use the hat as a swatch as suggested by Elizabeth Zimmerman in The Opinionated Knitter. I have gotten to know the world of yarn through exploring hats. Last night as I considered the packing up and sending out of our Sock and Hat Club packages I knit a hat. I choose an old pattern friend and knit Sylvia Olsen’s Salish Touque. This is the kind of hat from my childhood. Cowichan inspired, it was the the focus of our first workshop in 2015. I knit it in the traditional way on Double Pointed Needles instead of a circular needle. It was on and off my needles in just a few hours and as I went to bed it lay drying on a blanket on the back of the couch.
I don’t need to wear hats to love knitting them. I don’t need to have anyone in mind when I knit them. They are my personal dance as I explore different needles, sizes and ideas. Often socks and hats are called accessories. For me they have been essential in this exploration of yarn and life in the last eight years. They are easy to cast on, quick to knit up and so satisfying to cast off. All of the stitches and structure that you might need to knit in sweaters or other projects can be learned within the knitting of a hat or sock.

It is my hope that you will find the magic and joy in the knitting as I have and know that socks and hats can be “second nature to me now”.