North Side
Anna Coyne | St. Paul, MN
If you were to empty out my purse on any given day you would find the following: a wallet, an assortment of lipsticks, diapers and wipes for my baby, old receipts and gum wrappers, and a knitting project. I never leave home without one
I learned to knit in high school, and now, as a thirty something mom of two, it is my favorite hobby. I have a creative personality by nature, I earned a degree in classical piano performance, and if I don’t have a creative outlet, I go crazy. In this season of small children it has been hard to keep up with musical pursuits, but knitting fits in great with family life. You can often find me knitting during nap time, or while wearing a baby in a sling, or while my kids happily tear the house to shreds around me. I love knitting things for my family to wear, and when time permits, knitting things to stock my small Etsy shop, Middle West Knitting Co.
I am a St. Paul native and describe this city to out of town friends as the greatest city on earth. When I heard about a project that combined my favorite place with my favorite past time I knew I had to be involved. My cozy is inspired by a cozy cable sweater. I hope you enjoy it and have a cozy winter.
Elise Frederick | Plymouth
After participating in the Minnesota Knitters’ Guild yarn bombing at the Minnesota State Fair, I wondered why not quilt bombing? I’d seen yarn bombings in Minneapolis and Seattle but had never heard of a quilt bombing. I learned about the St. Paul Lamp Cozy project in a Local Fiber event posting on Minnesota Knitters’ Guild’s Ravelry group. This project would be a great opportunity to combine both of my fiber arts skills, knitting and quilting.
After a winter outing of ice skating, skiing, snowshoeing, snowboarding, sledding, or snowmobile rides, we often curl up with a steaming cup of hot cocoa, snuggled under a warm quilt. To celebrate winter in Minnesota, with temperatures that require layers of hats, mittens and sweaters for warmth when venturing outside in the snow, I chose a design theme of traditional hand knit motifs. The cozy design transitions from knitting with fabric to quilting knitting stitch patterns.
The cozy begins with a hand knit cuff, using techniques of two-color cast-on, two-color braids, and stockinette, knit with 2-ply yarn that is hand spun from strips of up-cycled T-shirts. The cuff is completed with a quilted horizontal motif that encircles the lamp post, like flying geese heading south.
The body of the cozy is quilted to represent a traditional Norwegian Fana Sweater, with its checkered pattern, layers of rows, leading to snowflake motifs as you look upwards towards the winter sky. Like two color knitting stitch and row gauges, the quilt blocks are not square, and the cozy fabric was cut and quilted for a gauge of 4 blocks(stitches) in 4 inches and 5 rows in 4 inches.
Many of the skills used in this cozy design have been learned in classes taken over the years at Minnesota Knitters’ Guild’s annual Yarnover event, Minnesota Quilters’ Annual Quilt Show and Convention, Seattle’s Nordic Knitting Conference, as well as numerous books in the Textile Center’s extensive textile library. The designer can be found on Ravelry as skqfurelise.
Cozy Dedication: “To knitters.org, mnquilt.org, textilecentermn.org and the donors and volunteers that support these fiber art organizations.”
Peggy Ramey | St. Paul, MN
[On fiber art] I just like to do it because it’s fun. I feel good when I weave. I like anything that has to do with yarn and fiber. I don’t like to do anything else! I got excited about the project and I made my cozy pretty fast. I chose whatever yarns stood out for me- I like simple, colorful yarns. I use as many colors as I can!
Cozy Dedication: “To Midwest Special Services.”
Collaborative Cozy by Artists from Midwest Special Services | St. Paul, MN
Artists who chose to be involved in this project generally agreed that it’s cool to know they were working on a project that other people would be able to see and appreciate. The most important aspect for them was for the world to see something they created. Midwest Special Services has a developing fiber arts space that features several rigid heddle looms, supplies for embroidery, spinning yarn, and sewing. This was a fun way to step outside of the box and incorporate other kinds of art, so that people who like to draw, paint, weave and sew could all take part in the same project. Each piece of the quilt represents the work of a different person.
South Side
Collaborative Cozy by Artists from Midwest Special Services | St. Paul, MN
Artists who chose to be involved in this project generally agreed that it’s cool to know they were working on a project that other people would be able to see and appreciate. The most important aspect for them was for the world to see something they created. Midwest Special Services has a developing fiber arts space that features several rigid heddle looms, supplies for embroidery, spinning yarn, and sewing. This is a cozy made out of potholders that never made it to the kitchen! Artists chose the composition and hand-sewed all the pieces together.
Nora Haider | St. Paul, MN
Kellye Rose | Burnsville, MN
Mitzi Christian | St. Paul, MN
My cozy is a “picture” of an ice castle, which I saw for the first time in 1972. I didn’t know such a grand structure, built out of ice, was even possible. You could walk through the castle at the time and this southern gal was blown away by it. The sun and snowflakes “show” how cold it can feel up here, even when the sun is shining, and the purple flowers are for my mother-in-law. Lilacs were her favorite flower, and while these flowers are closer to roses than lilacs, the color is the same. I love to crochet, and do so as often as possible. I thought making a cozy would help me get to know my new neighborhood and the people who live near me. I’ve always loved the idea of yarn bombing (and this is close) and it also sounded like fun.
Cozy Dedication: “To Katie Layne Taylor, great grandmother, who taught me to crochet more than 60 years ago and Virginia Christian, mother-in-law, who taught me how to live in Minnesota without freezing into a block of ice.”
St. Paul Cozy 