The Yarn Whisperer by Clara Parkes

The Yarn Whisperer: My Unexpected Life in Knitting by Clara Parkes

In ‘The Yarn Whisperer: My Unexpected Life in Knitting’, renowned knitter and author Clara Parkes uses the metaphor of knitting to tell her own story via twenty-two captivating, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny essays.

Spinning masterful yarns of childhood and adulthood, she tells of eccentric relatives and the abrupt seek of divorce, of trying to make her puffy stitches fit within France’s smooth fabric, of coming out as a knitter, and eventually cutting herself free from Silicon Valley to lead a more creative life on the coast of Maine. Throughout, she draws clever parallels between what happens around us and what we see on our needles, revealing universal truths that will touch knitters and non-knitters alike.

Put simply, “For life really is a stitch. It has a beginning, a midpoint, and an end. It serves a purpose, and if we’re lucky, it creates something far greater than the sum of its parts.”

“Long before social media cluttered every corner of our existence, Parkes’s conversational 411 about new yarns and interesting pattern designs forged connections among far-flung knitters, who discovered they were a global community rather than lone practitioners of a cozy hobby they’d learned from Mom.” – Kathy Blumenstock, The Washington Post

‘Author of six books including the New York Times bestselling Knitlandia, Clara has dedicated her life to figuring out what makes yarn tick—and finding the right words to write about it. She turned passion into profession in 2000 when she launched Knitter’s Review, the first comprehensive online knitting magazine and community.’ – Clara Parkes