Unraveling a Knitted Mystery

Before writing Knitting Stories (Sono Nis, 2014), Sylvia Olsen wondered if she had anything more to say about the subject. Olsen's award-winning book about Coast Salish knitters Working with Wool (Sono Nis $22.95) had been the subject of her MA thesis and a film, The History of Coast Salish Knitters. She also wrote a children's book called Yetsa's Sweater. Was another book warranted?

"The answer is yes, of course. Knitting stories are as varied as the garments we knit,"; she writes in her introduction. "Like all good stories, they tell us things about ourselves and about what it means to be a human being. We will never grow tired of stories like that. Handwork has occupied people for millennia. What we've all learned since knitting became trendy a few years ago is that it is not something new. Knitting is arguably one of the oldest activities in the sense that it is a way of creating things with our hands to keep us warm and make us look beautiful. It sits at an interesting intersection between function and fashion, and I think that we have only started to unravel its intricacies.";

It was a visit with a young Coast Salish woman that inspired Olsen. "One day, during a conversation with the granddaughter of an old Coast Salish knitter I had worked with for years, I expressed my relief at finally being finished with writing about knitting. 'But you're so lucky to have spent so much time with all the old knitters,' she said. 'There must be many more stories to tell.'";

It got Olsen thinking and soon she was jotting down stories. Previously she had spent more than fifteen years buying and selling Cowichan sweaters from her home on the Tsartlip Indian Reserve near Victoria, British Columbia. Although the business closed its doors in 1991, almost every day since Olsen says she has been engaged in some way with Cowichan sweaters or with knitting.

And in 2012, Olsen started a new small business called Salish Fusion. Joining her were two of her children, Adam and Joni, who are of mixed ancestry: Coast Salish and Scottish/English. Rather than traditional Cowichan handspun wool, Adam and Joni used wool processed into Aran weight, giving them a broad range of design opportunities. They came up with beautiful new looks that referenced and honoured the old knitters as well as traditions from their British Isles roots. Nine of these new patterns are included in Knitting Stories.

"Whether making garments for others, or myself they have been a personal expression-the embodiment of my inner world,"; writes Olsen. "Translating my designs into something other knitters could share, translating my designs into patterns that can be made with commercial yarn is a new adventure.";