Our Yarn

Yarn is where it all started from. Granny has an evergrowing amount of woollen yarn leftovers. They are of random amount and color, but it is 100% natural wool. Surely you can't leave valuable stuff just laying around like that so she started making socks for us, her grandchildren. Then for her cousins and their children… to their boyfriends and girlfriends… until it came to us – there are people out there who don't have grandmothers with this level of knitting skills. And on the other hand she could use some extra activity, motivation and frankly –money– to add to her pension. Win-win?

Our granny

My grandmother was born 77 years ago into a farm in Northern Saaremaa. That was 6 years before her family got deported from their home to Sibera, during the II World War. In fact, the last time she saw her father was the day the soldiers put him in a separate truck from the rest of the family. He was taken to Irkutsk where he died the same year before he was even "convicted" of anything. Luckily my grandmother, her mother and brother got sent back home by the newly intruded Germans before they even got to the Russian border. 

After she arrived back home, she had 11 years of education, worked mainly as a bookkeeper in various companies and kept on knitting. She has never not lived on the island of Saaremaa, she doesn't know how to swim and hasn't even visited the neighbouring islands, she has just lead a quiet and humble life ever since.

When did you start knitting?

Oh God knows, ever since I remember.

Who taught you knitting?

Ehh, I really don't know. They taught it at school. And from my mother and grandmother. They were knitting all the time and all the things. Back in my days you had to make everything yourself. All the long stockings, everybody's sweaters, mittens, socks etc were knit by hand. We had a herd of lambs, then we shaved them, spinned the wool, dyed the wool and knitted all through winter.

How did you dye the wool with?

I remember onion peels. But the color always came out random, depending on the onions and how much, how raw etc. I think they were also store-bought dyes, but can't remember.

Where did you get the patterns?

From the village. They also had new patterns in Eesti Naine (tr: Estonian Woman – the most prevalent women's magazine at the time) but most of the time we just copied from each other, if someone had something new and nice, we just took it over.

Have you worked for any companies, as a knitter?

I've never stopped knitting. I used to knit for Uku (a nationwide Soviet cooperation that sold handicraft) and then for different small handicraft sellers, but they mostly sell on the local market and that's not much. I never worked as a full-time knitter. 

Back in the days when there was no TV, there was really nothing else to do in the evenings. That's why I was knitting so much. Now I can't watch TV without knitting, I fall asleep.