I’m So Back: On being unapologetically extra + Extra Stitch

I’m back.

I’ve been thinking about writing [on Substack] again for a while now.

Extra Stitch has already been a part of my world, through my northknits newsletter ,my YouTube podcast, and I love sharing entries here as well.

It’s always felt like a natural extension of Northknits. Northknits is the foundation, the patterns, the pieces. Extra Stitch has always been the layer around that. The part that doesn’t always fit into a pattern or a product page, but still belongs to the same world.

Not something new, just something that already fits.

What I kept coming back to wasn’t the name (though my substack was originally called knitter, also it quickly felt a little too forced), it was the feeling that I wanted to write again. In the same way I want to knit, or read, or travel, like something that’s just part of how I move through my life.

Not forced, not overly planned. Just something I come back to because I enjoy it.

If you knit or crochet, you already know that an extra stitch is usually something you don’t want. It’s the thing you notice a few rows later when something feels slightly off. It’s the moment where you pause and think, wait… how did I end up with one more stitch than I started with?

And yes, technically, it’s a mistake. It’s something you can fix. You can go back, unravel a bit, clean it up, make everything even again.

But after more than ten years of designing knitwear, I’ve also learned that it’s not always that serious.

Sometimes the extra stitch doesn’t ruin anything. Sometimes it changes the shape in a way that’s actually interesting. Sometimes it adds a little texture, or it shifts the piece just enough that it feels a bit more like your own. And sometimes, if you’re being honest, you don’t even feel like going back to fix it, and it still turns out completely fine.

There’s a kind of freedom in that.

Continue reading on Substack →