About

I started knitting after a fight with depression.  I had lost my first apartment, my first cat, had learned just how bad people could screw you over and even more so – money does not grow on trees.  The Harry Potter movies had been a highlight in my life, and I pined for a Harry Potter themed scarf in one of my favorite house colors, Slytherin.  I had attempting learning to knit on my own, with just instructions from a beginners kit, and the first two skeins of green and yellow yarn that I saw.

I ended up hanging around my nana that whole day, bugging her with all of my knitting questions, and listening to her every word when she began to teach me the first three steps to creating a basic stockinette stitch for my scarf.  It was soon found out that the two yarns I bought were both of a different texture, so when I eventually ended that project, my scarf looked hideous and a dead giveaway that I was a beginning knitter.

My hands were almost always full with some sort of string and anything that would resemble needles; pencils, toothpicks, my fingers, when needles couldn’t be easily reached.  I took my knitting everywhere, and would often be known to sit in a booth at a 24 hour diner for hours and hours upon end, chatting with friends and strangers alike while learning knitting skills that would soon become second nature to me.

For years I knit for my own pleasure, learning new stitches, building a love for anything with cables in the pattern, and finding the joy in knitting up something quick and silly for my friends and family.  It wasn’t until The Marketplace offered me that I had begun to think of getting serious about selling my knitting.  That thought was always in the back of my mind, and when it became a possibility, I gladly accepted.

The name of my company came to me without having to even think hard about it.  My nana, Dorothy, was the one who taught me how to knit – and in part is the main reason I can knit.  My other grandmother, Doris, had lit the flame on my addiction to crafts when I was a little girl and always made sure I was doing something; be it cross stitching, or sewing.  Donnelly symbolizes me and a family that has always believed in putting your whole self into your wants and goals.  I wanted to immortalize two of my favorite women in a name that I hope will someday become a household name.