Jan Martens-Janzen
My grandmother taught me to knit when I was 12 years old. I’ve always enjoyed knitting but recently I’ve come to realize that I love to knit, and I’ve done more knitting during COVID-19 times than perhaps in recent years combined. Natural fibres are my favourites: alpaca, cashmere, silk, yak, angora, bison, linen, wool, recycled silk sari yarn and even banana fibre. There is such a variety of beautiful yarns and they inexplicably fill my heart with joy as I knit the strands into the simplest of patterns as well as into more intricate ones. Projects are usually for my children and grandchildren and each stitch is my virtual hug to them. At the same time the colour, texture and pattern can stir warm memories in me. A certain colour can remind me of a brilliant prairie canola field in bloom; while another can take me to the dancing Aurora Borealis lights of northern Saskatchewan; and a delicate pattern, or fineness of yarn, can transport me to the Ural Mountains where my ancestors knit the soft down of Orenburg goats into warm shawls (knit so fine they could be pulled through a wedding ring) as they sojourned to Ukraine and Crimea and eventually to Canada.
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