Stories Behind My Knitting Patterns
Every stitch has a story.
Some begin with joy.
Some begin with grief.
Some celebrate a wedding.
Some welcome a new baby.
Some become treasured family traditions.
And some quietly remind us that the things we make often say the words our hearts cannot.
These are the stories behind my knitting patterns—the people, the moments, and the memories that have shaped both my life and my knitting.
Thank you for spending a little time with me.
I hope you'll find a piece of your own story here, too.
— Kimberly
Love Letters In Lace
A Story About the Shawls I Knit for the McAlindin Lasses
When my niece Meg sat down to open her bridal shower gift, she thought she was opening a handmade shawl.
She was. But she was also receiving something I hope she'll carry with her for the rest of her life.
Years ago, I knit a shawl for one of the McAlindin lasses as she began a new chapter of her life. Then another. And then another.
Without ever planning it, these shawls became my love letters in lace.
People often assume they're bridal shawls. They're not. The wedding simply happens to be the moment they're given. In fact, not one of my nieces has worn her shawl on her wedding day.
That was never the point.
The point has always been much simpler... and much more important.
Every McAlindin lass who receives one is beginning a new chapter of her life. She may take a new last name, build a new home, and create traditions of her own. My hope is that, wherever her life takes her, she'll always have something tangible to wrap around her shoulders - a gentle reminder of where she came from.
Every stitch carries my hopes for her happiness, my prayers for the life she's building, and the quiet joy I felt while making something just for her.
That, more than the lace itself, is what I hope she feels when she looks at her shawl.
Meg's shawl began long before I cast on the first stitch.
When she became engaged at a vineyard in Italy, I knew I wanted to weave that milestone into her shawl. The center panel is worked in a traditional Shetland lace motif, bordered by vine lace, and I finished with the beautiful Print o' the Wave edging - a quiet nod to the ocean that has carried families, stories, and journeys for generations.
Over nearly 150 hours, one stitch slowly became another until the shawl was complete.
But if I'm honest...
The knitting was never really the gift.
The gift was knowing that, long after I bound off the last stitch, a little piece of my love would continue to travel with her.
I hope that years from now, when Meg unfolds her shawl, she won't simply remember the day she received it.
I hope she'll remember the family who loved her first.
And that somewhere, wrapped inside the lace...
...there will alwlays be a hug from Aunt Kimberly.
That's why I'll keep knitting these shawls.
Because sometimes the most important thing we can leave the people we love is the certainty that they have always been, and always will be, so deeply loved.
When Days Are Grey, Knit a Rainbow
My mother named Knit A Rainbow before either of us knew there would ever be something called Knit A Rainbow.
It wasn't a business idea. It wasn't a name I dreamed up for a website, a YouTube channel, or a place to sell my knitting patterns.
It was one of the last lessons my mother ever gave me.
My mother, Gail, was the kind of person who made life a little brighter simply by being in it.
She was funny. Really funny. She had an infectious laugh that occasionally ended in a snort. When we were kids, she would pile all four of us into our woody station wagon to drive us to school, sometimes with music blaring and all of us dancing hard enough to make the car shake. I remember looking at the bored faces of people in the cars beside us and watching them begin to smile.
She had that effect on people.
She had sparkle.
She was also kind—not in a grand or showy way, but in the everyday ways that matter.
When we were little, she invented something called the Smile Game. We were supposed to smile or say hello to people while we were out and see how many smiles we could get in return. I loved it when I was young. As I got older, I decided it was embarrassing and finally asked her why we had to keep playing.
“Because it may be a person's only smile for the day,” she told me.
That was my mother.
She was always teaching us something.
And one of her last lessons changed my life.
Toward the end of her life, Mom was very sick and being treated at Sloan Kettering in New York. Those days were frightening. My family was still trying to understand how our lives had changed so quickly.
I did what I have always done when life becomes too much.
I knitted.
One day, sitting beside her in the hospital, I started a shawl for myself. I had chosen a pretty grey yarn.
Mom woke up and asked what I was making and who it was for.
I told her that this one was for me.
She looked at the yarn and asked:
“Do you love the color?”
Now, I knew my mother.
This was not actually a question.
This was Gail's very polite way of saying, Kimberly, why on earth are you knitting yourself a grey shawl?
I told her the color was okay.
She closed her eyes and said:
“Honey, when life is hard and days are grey... knit a rainbow.”
So I did.
I returned the grey yarn and chose color instead. I knitted myself a rainbow shawl.
And when it came time to say goodbye to my mother, that was the shawl I wore.
I don't think either of us could have known what those few words would become.
Eventually, Knit A Rainbow became the name I put on this creative life of mine—my designs, my teaching, my videos, my patterns, and this little corner of the world where I get to share the things I make.
But it has never really been just a name.
It is a reminder.
When life is hard, make something beautiful.
When days are grey, look for color.
And when you have a little bit of light to give, share it.
Seven years later, I still hear my mother's voice in those words.
And every time I teach someone something new, share something I've made, or send another colorful project out into the world, I think perhaps I'm still playing the Smile Game.
Just in a different way.
Because you never know when the little bit of brightness you put into the world might be exactly what someone needed that day.
When days are grey... knit a rainbow. 🌈