Kreative Knits by Liona Jollota

Liona Jollota tells us her grandmother taught her to knit when she was just 3 years old! Imagine that. She started sewing when she was fifteen, and that was also the year she started her business working with fibre.

As the business suggests, Liona makes creative knitwear, from flower pins to hats to beer cozies (yes, really) to shrugs and shawls and socks. She says she loves everything about fibre—the colours, the textures, the variety of wonderful types of fibre that are available, like silk, cotton, alpaca, many kinds of wool…she loves to felt and also to dye her own yarns and especially relishes custom orders from people. “It is so satisfying to take a customer’s idea or pattern and create it in fibre,” she says.

Currently, Liona’s favourite fibre to work with is alpaca, in part because she was inspired when the booth next to hers at a recent artisan show was an alpaca farmer with lots of great yarns and fleece. “My favourite fibre does change with the season, sort of the same with my favourite thing to knit,” she says. Going into the spring and summer months, she uses a lot of silk in her creations, especially for summery shrugs and shawls.

What’s her favourite colour? Green, she says, although she finds one of the most popular colours with customers is shades of blue. But you’ll find a rainbow of colours at her booth at Expo. Drop by and see for yourself, and ‘have a yarn’ with Liona!