Threads of Memory – Knitting with Meaning – Claudia Quintanilla
Claudia Quintanilla designs from the place where memory and imagination meet. Some designs grow from moments she has lived. Others emerge from the beautiful illusions that memory creates, drawing from both life as it was and life as she might wish to remember it. Through knitting, Claudia holds close what has brought her joy and transforms difficult experiences into something tender, meaningful, and new.
A grandmother’s garden. Polka-dot dresses. Poetry heard at bedtime, a beloved novel, a song that returns you to another place. Each becomes the beginning of a garment. In Claudia’s hands, knitting is a way back to what might otherwise be lost—and a source of happiness in itself.
Claudia was among the first contemporary knitwear designers to explore knitting as a practice of memory. Four books on, she continues to ask how memory shapes what we make, and what making gives back to us.
The collection brings together eighteen designs, each exploring a different approach to garment construction and a distinct knitting technique—from lace and cables to beading, embroidery, and Swiss darning. Written with the clarity Claudia’s knitters have come to expect, the patterns invite makers not only to create something meaningful, but also to discover new ways of constructing and embellishing a garment.
Claudia’s patterns have been made by thousands of knitters through Ravelry and at her Toronto store, Eweknit, and she has been an invited guest at knitting events across Europe, North America, and South America.
Primarily photographed in Lucerne, the city of light, this collection is shaped by two homes and by all that travels between them. The designs carry Claudia’s stories, but she invites you to bring your own. For her, knitting is a language that connects us to our history, allows memory to speak, and gives imagination the freedom to dream. It even offers us a way to transcend time: something of us continues to live in what our hands have made, carried forward by those who wear it after us.
NOTE! Spanish edition is coming out in November 2026.
SHIPPING: Unfortunately, we’re not able to offer lower shipping costs to the US and Canada just yet — but we’re working on it! In the meantime, you can also find the book at Claudia’s store Ewe Knit Toronto, and soon at several other retailers across the US.
RETAILERS: Retailers interested in wholesale in Canada, US or Latin America, you can also order the book directly from Claudia Quintanilla.
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Patterns and texts: Claudia Quintanilla
Technical Editor: Terri Maue
Junior Technical Editor: Sixian (Angela) Wu
Photography: Viola Minerva Virtamo
Additional photography: Tetiana Metelska
Layout design: Viola Minerva Virtamo
