Seasonal Slow Knitting Thoughtful Projects for a Handmade Year

“Thiessen’s new book is all about promoting creativity at a slower pace, offering advice on finding the time and space to knit in a restful, calming way.” —The Knitter

This guide to knitting, making, and living a slow and thoughtful lifestyle all year long is author Hannah Thiessen’s follow-up to Slow Knitting, which introduced crafters to a process of more mindful making through five basic tenets: source carefully, make thoughtfully, think seasonally, experiment fearlessly, and explore openly.

Now, in SeasonalSlow Knitting, she offers a seasonal approach that encourages knitters to delve deeper into those concepts, applying them to everyday making through a series of essays, projects, and patterns that explore the life of a knitter throughout the year.

Organized similarly to a seasonal planting guide or farmer’s almanac, each chapter and section is designed to identify and encourage small ways that knitters may begin to employ noticeable change: organizing your yarn stash, carving out time for knitting, and starting on that baby blanket in a timely manner.

Thiessen writes in her introduction, “This book is as much about the philosophy behind why we knit and love to create, as it is about following a pattern or working on project.” The ideas explored here add up to a fuller, more mindful year, all through the joyful experience that is knitting. They seem more essential than ever in a world that moves too quickly, seems to call us to pick up a smartphone or other gadget, and seems fraught in ways we did not expect five or ten years ago. Today, knitting and slow knitting seem more important than ever before.

Hannah Thiessen is an experienced knitter, knitwear designer, teacher, and author of Slow Knitting. She lives in Nashville.