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In Review
Arctic Lace
Knitting Projects and Stories Inspired by Alaska's Native Knitters
Reviewed By L'Tanya Durante

If you are interested in history, cultures and craft, Donna Druchunas’ book, “Arctic Lace” deserves a place in your knitting library. “Arctic Lace” takes you on a journey through small villages in rural Alaska to the Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers’ Co-operative, a group of expert lace knitters. This co-op for Native Alaskan knitters began over fifty years ago; its vision was to provide income to hundreds of Native Alaskan women.

The co-op sells lines of qiviut accessories. Qiviut? “Arctic Lace” goes into detail about this exotic fiber; a fiber grown by musk oxen and considered “one of the most luxurious and expensive in the world.” Novice and experienced lace knitters will appreciate the chapter on qiviut and other lace yarns – from buying, spinning, and caring for qiviut to the gallery of photographs of swatches using other weights of yarn.

If you don’t consider yourself a lace knitter, but are familiar with reading and knitting from charts, you’re going to be tempted to skip through the book, pick up the lace-weight yarn, and start swatching or start a lace project. Don’t do it. The “Lace-knitting workshop” is a must-read and will gently guide you as you practice with worsted-weight wool and move toward knitting with lace-weight qiviut yarn.

The projects in “Arctic Lace” have been designed for knitters of all levels. The clean, snapshot kind of layout makes it easy to search for a pattern based on skill level or yarn, for example. Since I enjoy trying to see through a designer’s eyes, I love that by including photographs of cultural pieces, you’re invited to peak at the inspiration from which Druchunas designed the projects in the book.

Sometimes there are events in one’s life that seem to stop time; events that change you. This is how I felt about this book. I had never heard of this rare yarn, and really didn’t consider myself much of a lace knitter. That was before reading “Arctic Lace.” Now, I want to feel, breathe in, and knit with qiviut, and breathe in the history and spirit of what it means to do so.

Arctic Lace
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Nomad Press (October 25, 2006)

L'Tanya Durante is the Editor-in-Chief of Black Purl Magazine. She lives in Durham, NC with her husband, two sons and cat. She spends her quiet time beading, knitting, and crocheting, or reading about beading, knitting or crocheting.