Welcome to Wild Spruce Knits
Welcome! I wanted to share a little bit about how Wild Spruce Knits came to be. When I first started I got a lot of questions about how and why a nurse practitioner starts a knitting business, so I thought I’d share how it came to be!
HOW IT STARTED
My grandma taught me how to knit when I was just a little kid. Out of her six kids and eight grandkids, no one else was ever really interested in learning. There were lots of sewers and other types of artists in the family, but no one else ever really learned to knit and stuck with it. First I learned how to knit hats, then socks and mittens, but I never learned how to read a pattern. She did write down her sock “recipe” for me at one point, but it did not resemble any type of pattern that you might purchase. A funny aside to this is that my mom was a very good cook but never followed a recipe, she once wrote down her “recipe” for me for Cleaning the Refrigerator Soup. It was several pages long and read more like a choose your own adventure story than a recipe!
I work as a family nurse practitioner and until late 2021 also had an online portion to my business (you might also know me as The Renegade Nurse Practitioner 👋 ). But after the madness that was 2020 and 2021, I decided that I was tired of trying to compete for attention in the online health space and I wanted something creative to do! And so, Wild Spruce Knits was born!
I still see patients in the clinic several days during the week, but making handknits continues to be one of my favorite ways to give my brain a break. It makes me incredibly happy to share these items with others too!
WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO ME
I was born and raised in Alaska and the outdoors has always played an incredibly important role in my life. But it wasn’t until the summer of 2020 when I started going on weekly hikes with friends as a safe way to socialize that I realized just how important it was and how happy being in the mountains makes me. I was sad about canceling travel plans, but I explored corners of my backyard (which happens to be the third-largest state park in the U.S.) that I never would have seen if I had gone on those planned trips.
How does my love of the outdoors and connect with knitting? Wool is the perfect material for your outdoor adventures. It’s warm, anti-microbial, odor-resistant, water repellant, and continues to insulate you even when it gets wet. In high school when I was on the cross-country ski team, I always wore a pair of wool socks hand-knit by my grandma when it got extra cold out. My feet were always toasty and warm, even when they got sweaty.
It’s also important to me to use high-quality, ethically sourced materials. Wool and merino wool last for a very long time when cared for properly (I still have the pair of socks I used for skiing in high school…and 20+ years later they are still in good shape and continue to keep my feet warm on cold days). They are also biodegradable when you are done with them.
Every single Wild Spruce Knits item is handmade by me. The pattern and the color have likely been inspired by something I saw while out on an adventure. It’s even possible that part of your item was created while I was enjoying a quiet moment or some epic scenery.