It's another snowy, icy day here in the Witch City, and today I'm chatting with my amazing friend Ash Alberg of Sunflower Knit. Read on to meet this amazing Fibre Witch and learn about the inspiration for their newest book, cwtch: finding ritual in the everyday
xo, Ana
Ash Alberg, aka Sunflower Knit, is a queer femme, fibre witch and hedgewitch, professional knitwear designer and natural dyer, and parent to Willow, the coven pooch. Follow them on IG @sunflowerknit, and check out their side project for fibershed advocacy at fromfieldtoskin.com and @fromfieldtoskin. Ash also teaches both knitwear design and natural dyeing, and budding fibre witches can learn with them online.
Ash and I met years ago on Instagram. Since then, we've collaborated on multiple projects (including our new Fiber Witch Box collection) and traveled to Rhinebeck together. Yesterday we chatted about their new book, and here's what I learned!
cwtch is very much inspired by Salem and by you, Ana! (awww <3)
The original plan was to come down for a visit and photograph all the shawls around town and take a trip over to Harrisville to see the mill, but then COVID hit and eventually I realized it made more sense to bring the book into the world with some adjustments rather than having it sit half-done for who knew how many years. I shot all the shawl photos on my own in my back living room in december 2020, and all the recipe photos were shot in november 2019 in my front living room by Samson during a work trip (he and I live 2000 miles apart and make a point of seeing each other at least once a year normally - COVID marks the longest time we've been apart in the 13 years we've known each other).
The extra time did give me time to start learning both polish and gaelic (it's still very early days but I like listening to children's bedtime stories as part of my learning methods), and establish my tarot practice more. I'm also learning herbalism in a more formal way these days. Basically COVID has just let me hunker down into all the witchcraft. Willow puts up with it for the most part, although she doesn't appreciate when i'm doing my morning tarot pulls instead of giving her a dental chew immediately after she finishes breakfast.
Ash's new book was written in collaboration with Harrsiville Designs, and features Harrisville Nightshades, one of my all-time favorite yarns. Prefer a lighter palette? Knit Ash’s beautiful designs in Harrisville Daylights. cwitch includes 10 new shawl knitting patterns and 18 recipes for food, drink, and simple potions for home and body care, to help you find ritual in the everyday.
10 Things about Ash:
peppers make me puke unless they're dried and crushed into powder.
pink was my favourite colour until i was 6, then i hated it until i was an adult (because patriarchy/internalized femmephobia), and now i love it again.
i'm half-maritimer and my accent gets thicker when i'm drunk and/or around other maritimers.
my first tarot deck is actually my dad's old deck. his mom (my gramma) grew up with romani before the war and learned how to read dreams from them, but that's not why he picked up tarot.
i'm a triple fire sign with venus in pisces, so chill isn't really in my vocabulary. it's also not in my dog's vocabulary. we can be a bit much sometimes.
i love good lingerie and good lipstick, even when i'm just spending the day with my dye pots and on dog walks.
my favourite ice cream flavour is mint chocolate chip.
i have a hard time growing plants and am always very proud of myself when i keep one alive for a while.
a big factor in creating a new book with my friend and photographer samson is getting to travel somewhere on our bucket list. we like islands especially.
i'm a leftie knitter and do knit backwards (stitches move from my right needle to my left).
Stay tuned for my next Fiber Witch chat!
