Dear Pru is all about making connections, sharing skills and expressing creativity through the art of knitting.
I learnt to knit as a very young person and it has held different significance for me at different times in my life: as a child, it was a medium for connecting with my grandma. As a teenager I enjoyed “reward rows” to break up study time. As an adult it has been about slow fashion, artistic expression and mindfulness. More recently it has been a means to bring together my skills as an educator and as a knitting expert to design workshops that attract lifelong learners to develop skills and create with others.
I am based in Adelaide, and have tended to teach in SA. Excitingly, I have a number of workshops interstate in 2022 including two yarn retreats offered by Yarn Creative Australia in Launceston and Blue Mountains. I would also like to offer online classes.
Why did you decide to go into business?
Dear Pru started before I really realised it was happening. People kept asking me to teach them to knit or requesting bespoke ‘knit wishes’ for birthday gifts – and so I started designing and offering workshops. My background is in teaching, so workshops are a natural habitat for me: it’s all about creating a positive learning environment where everyone experiences growth, regardless of their starting point. I owe a lot to Tanya Keen (Yarn Trader, Port Adelaide) who encouraged me to keep designing different classes, always with the potential student in mind.
What has been your biggest hurdle?
The biggest hurdle is overcoming my self doubt! There is a story I tell myself about how I could never make this a full time job, that there isn’t the interest out there, that I’m not talented enough to keep designing things that people want to knit. I am working to overcome that because it’s a fiction that is holding me back from sharing my creativity and cultivating it in others through the art of knitting.
What are you most proud of?
I am so proud of walking 750km along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in 2015. It helps to remind myself that this is evidence I am capable of great things – just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other!
Do you have a fave place to go to for coffee?
Have so many favourite spots, because coffee and cake are like medicine for my soul. I particularly love Perryman’s Bakery in North Adelaide. Petite, and softly spoken, it’s an Adelaide institution that dates back to 1925, it holds nostalgia for me as we would go there in the school holidays to select pasties and cakes to enjoy at the playground at the end of the road. I still get school holiday feels when I go there – not least because they have fantastic customer service and all coffees are accompanied by one of their famous gingerbread babies!
What is the best advice you have received that has stuck with you?
I absolutely love Clare Bowditch’s music and one line of hers that really resonates with me is “You don’t have to be just one thing/ but you have to start with something” and I whenever I get stuck I think, just make a start! I even named one of my workshops after this line – the Start Somewhere Snood!
Thanks for sharing my story Carly!