Join the Institute of Island Studies in person or online on December 3, 1-2 pm, for “Yarns and Yarns,” an hour of knitting and storytelling on northern islands, when we will discuss and demonstrate island knitting traditions that focus on mittens.

Knitters, bring your knitting and share your current projects and mitten stories! We’ll be gathering at The Gallery Coffee House and Bistro, 82 Great George Street, Charlottetown, PEI, or you can join us online. Please click here to register: it’s free and everyone is welcome.

Local knitter Cheryl Wartman will talk about the tradition of making fishing mittens felted in salt water, as told to her by her grandmother Yoston from Launching Place, PEI. Kim Doherty Smith from Fleece and Harmony, a locally sourced wool mill in Belfast, PEI, will answer questions about how they mini mill their yarn from PEI sheep. And Lynda Harling Stalker, from a long line of Prince Edward Islanders, will join us online from Antigonish, Nova Scotia, to discuss handknit mitts and islandness.

This is the fourth “Yarns and Yarns” event organized by the Arctic Island Studies Research (NAISR) Thematic Network of the University of the Arctic. Previous in-person and online events were hosted by knitting groups in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador; Uist, Scotland; and Iceland, with over 100 knitters from all over the North Atlantic Zooming in. The Charlottetown event is hosted by the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI in collaboration with the Institute for Northern Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands, Shetland, Scotland, and other members of the NAISR.