I designed Close Knit to be a freeform thing - I didn't want to commit to making a certain product, or anything, I decided instead to have side jobs to keep up an income so that I could afford to be a little playful and meandering with this little business.

It's lead me to so many good things - a blog post series turned into a podcast, my flexible work schedule that lets me attend handspinners guild meetings on thursday mornings, and now I've begun learning (and getting addicted to) spinning.

There have been so many tiny, serendipitous things that have happened that have led me to where I am now with Close Knit, and I'm loving the surprises and exciting opportunities that have come out of them.

The knitted chokers/necklaces are one such story.

I have promised my partner a friendship bracelet for many years (sorry, bub!) and I've also promised for the last year and a half that I'll felt patches onto the jumper that used to belong to my papa back in day (the elbows are just gaping holes now). So I finally got around to picking up some roving from the handspinners guild shop and I picked up two, one dark grey and one navy, not sure which one would go with his jumper.

I took them home and realised the grey was totally clashing - so I nixed that idea and figured, well, now I've got this grey cloud of fluff to practice spinning with! I started spinning it up and made a few tiny skeins, no more than 10g each - real tiny. I plied them up, washed them and turned them into my first few skeins of handspun which I proudly brought to the guild meeting for "show and tell".

Then I was like, what do I do with all these tiny skeins? they're not really enough to make something out of. So I remembered that I had promised a friendship bracelet to my partner for literally years and set about making one. I knitted it up and thought I'd make it a bit bigger than my own wrist to accommodate his - but when I finished it it looked pretty long. I held it up to my neck for comparison, and then I was like, wait a minute, could I knit chokers?

So i tied it up in a little bow at the back and started wearing it around. I was pretty pleased.

I wore it home and immediately my housemates all exclaimed that they wanted one, too. That gave me the needed validation that these were fun/kinda cool so I kept knitting them.

They are all handspun wool (usually Australian grown merino) - spun either by me or a friend in the states who sent me some little skeins to play with - and then they're handknit by me. Because of the nature of handspun, they're all one-of-a-kind! They're tiny labours of love and what I like the most about them is that I only feel joy/excitement when spinning and knitting small things - so they're full of good vibes, too.

If you're in the marker for a knitted necklace - let me know, let's make that happen!

OR if you wanna make your own and you live in Hobart - come to my workshop next Tuesday night, 7th June 2016 7pm-9pm at the State Cinema in North Hobart. To register a spot email hello@shippinglane.com - tix are $35 and include a hot beverage, knitting needles and wool that's been handspun by me! Hope to see you there.

And in case you're wondering, I did end up making my partner his friendship bracelet in the end ;)