About Us
AvidKnit is an online shop of Avid, a business started in 1990 by Sarah Mabbitt, though this website is somewhat more recent.
Sarah started knitting 69 years ago at the age of 4, starting with finger knitting, progressing to a pair of pencils, and then to a pair of plastic knitting needles, yellow with pink knobs. With these needles and one ball of wool, Sarah designed and knitted clothes for her dolls before she was old enough to read.
Ever since then Sarah has had some knitting on the go. However, she was very frustrated for many years by the lack of patterns of good, interesting, contemporary design. Until recent years, pattern designs were stuck in the 1950's, somewhat boring, and still part of the "make do and mend" postwar ethos, when people knitted to save money. She had to resort to designing her own; she liked to make them as interesting to knit as possible, with more complicated stitches, and to reduce the amount of sewing up, or "making up" as it was called. To this end she made as much use as she could of circular knitting and of grafting, and when circular knitting wasn't desirable, using "invisible" seaming.
Nowadays there are good designs available, and yarns too have become more interesting, and with some lovely colours. A selection of the best of these are being offered here on AvidKnit. Sarah is no longer so concerned about reducing the making up, as this can be an important part of the structure, but instead takes care with this sewing to make sure that it is very neat - it is worth going to a bit of extra trouble. Having spent a lot of time knitting the garment, it is a shame to spoil it with shoddy sewing.
Sarah started knitting 69 years ago at the age of 4, starting with finger knitting, progressing to a pair of pencils, and then to a pair of plastic knitting needles, yellow with pink knobs. With these needles and one ball of wool, Sarah designed and knitted clothes for her dolls before she was old enough to read.
Ever since then Sarah has had some knitting on the go. However, she was very frustrated for many years by the lack of patterns of good, interesting, contemporary design. Until recent years, pattern designs were stuck in the 1950's, somewhat boring, and still part of the "make do and mend" postwar ethos, when people knitted to save money. She had to resort to designing her own; she liked to make them as interesting to knit as possible, with more complicated stitches, and to reduce the amount of sewing up, or "making up" as it was called. To this end she made as much use as she could of circular knitting and of grafting, and when circular knitting wasn't desirable, using "invisible" seaming.
Nowadays there are good designs available, and yarns too have become more interesting, and with some lovely colours. A selection of the best of these are being offered here on AvidKnit. Sarah is no longer so concerned about reducing the making up, as this can be an important part of the structure, but instead takes care with this sewing to make sure that it is very neat - it is worth going to a bit of extra trouble. Having spent a lot of time knitting the garment, it is a shame to spoil it with shoddy sewing.
