About
Why Ursalia Fibres Studio?
When people were trying to decide what they would name Canada, there were many names considered. Ursalia was among them. It means “place of the bears”. It would have been a fitting name since Canada has about 67% of all polar bears in the world (the city of Churchill, in Manitoba is nicknamed “the polar bear capital of the world”).
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Patterns
I’ve learned to knit pretty early but really picked up the hobby when I was around 15 years old. I worked a lot with patterns until 2015 when there was the Syrian refugee crisis. At that time, an initiative was created to knit hats for Syrian refugees arriving in Canada. At one point I decided to improvise some patterns by mixing stitches, finding stitch patterns that I found interesting… And my love of creating patterns was born.
I love both simple and complex patterns but I have a real fondness for cables. Strangely I find that I work faster when I knit cables than when I simply knit in stockinette stitch. Anything can become a source of inspiration for patterns: the detail of a sweater or a hat in a TV Show, a stitch pattern seen in a book, something seen outside… Sometimes I’m in the process of trying stitches for a pattern I want to make and find myself thinking about 10 other patterns I want to create.
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Dyeing
I started experimenting with dyeing after making a couple of projects with artisanal yarns and I fell in love with the process and the creativity that goes into it. My first skein was a self-striping green and deep aqua sock yarn.
Even skeins that don’t come out as they should can be reworked and become some of my favorites!
I love bright colours but sometimes feel like knitting with more neutral colours. As for the patterns, anything can inspire a new colour, from the sky to a fallen leaf to my dog or other animals…
As for the names of the colors? It’s pretty simple… I’ve loved mythology ever since middle school, when we studied Ancient Times in history class. It was only logical to give the yarns names from mythology.