Although hand knitting is a craft that has been around for hundreds of years, it is an art that has sadly been dying out mainly due to the high cost of yarn but also  because so many items are cheaper to mass produce, usually in countries where cheap labour is exploited, and you can find them in almost any store whenever you are ready but, unfortunately, that also comes at a cost as each item is identical to the next with no individuality about them and within a short period of time, they become throw aways.

 

However, with hand knitted garments you really are getting a "one of a kind" item that, with care, will last for many years.  

 

I'm sure that many of you out there still have items that were knitted for you by either a mother or grandmother that you treasure to this day and have either passed it on to the next generation or have kept in a safe place for you to take out occasionally and just smile at the memories?  Well that is exactly the kind of thing that I like to produce.

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Here at Thistle and Maple Leaf, each item is knitted by one person (myself), on one pair of knitting needles, with a skein of yarn on one side and a pattern on the other. 

 

Hand knitting does take time, with the average ladies sweater taking as much as 25-30 hours to construct, depending on the complexity of the pattern, but each item has that touch of something special, and no two items will ever be exactly the same.

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I hope you like what you see in the following pages.

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