Home, to me, has always meant more than the house I lived in with my family. It’s also meant the connection I’ve felt to the places I’ve lived as an adult, first in Hamilton then in Halifax. A connection that is not only to the people who were part of my life in those cities and the memories that came along with them, but with the vegetation, the geologic makeup, the bodies of water, the glacial movements that lovingly shaped the landscape over eons. These cities, picked at somewhat random and only ever intended to simply be the physical space I inhabited while pursuing education, captured my heart and mind completely. As a student first of the natural environment and then the human, I am infinitely fascinated by the connection between the two and how they come together to create the places where we live out our lives and create meaning within them.

That’s why, from the moment I picked up Fiona Alice’s Take Heart in a local newspaper and book shop, I was in love. Half of the patterns are inspired by locations in the UK where Fiona studied and the other half by locations across Nova Scotia, where she is from. I fell in love with how the details of each pattern, from the texture to the yarn choice, was connected in some way to the places that inspired each design.  From the patterns in the collection, the Ketch Harbour Shawl immediately stood out to me. I hiked Ketch Harbour in my first year of living in Nova Scotia and I remember it was the first time I had experienced that part of the coast aside from the token visit to Peggy’s Cove when I first moved here. It’s still one of my favourite terrains in the whole province.

Because it was my first time knitting a shawl and working with some of the techniques, I made several crucial mistakes and forced myself to start this project over and over. I put it down for months and didn’t want to look at it. I was frustrated with not getting it right, with messing up what comes so easily to others. And yet, I felt called to continue trying. When I finally picked it back up again, I decided to actually work with the mistakes, allowing them to become part of the final fabric. Picturing the scrubby brush and the faulted coastal rocks where they meet the energetic Atlantic Ocean waves reminded me that the terrain of Nova Scotia’s south shore is itself full of imperfect textures.

With most of my making projects, I am constantly battling the tension between enjoying the practice and process of making and wanting to see the thing done so I can wear it and love it and show it off. After working through my initial fixation on executing the pattern perfectly, my usual urgency was completely absent. I was happy to come to it and work on it when I felt inspired to do so and to put it down when I felt finished for the day. I luxuriated in how the yarn felt in my hands, in seeing the shawl grow row by row. It may not be perfect, but I love it more for what it now represents to me and the connections it has in my mind to the place I call home.

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Pattern: Ketch Harbour Shawl by Fiona Alice

Yarn: Illimani Santi in Raincloud