| Clara Parkes | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Alma Mater: | Mills College |
| Known For: | Textiles |
Clara Parkes is an American author, yarn critic, and wool expert.[1] [2] Parkes has been described as "quite possibly the only writer you will ever read who can make a discussion of micron counts absolutely riveting."[3]
Parkes was taught to knit aged eight, by her grandmother.[4] After graduating from Mills College, Parkes began her career in high tech publishing in San Francisco before moving to Maine and launching her online magazine Knitter's Review in 2000.[4] [5] In 2012 she purchased a 676 lb. bale of American Merino wool and began a crowd-funded project known as The Great White Bale, in which she chronicled the process of turning the raw wool into finished yarn.[6] This project led to the creation of her own small-batch yarn company, Clara Yarn.[7] She is a Certified Level 1 Wool Classer, and a member of the American Sheep Industry Association.[8]
Parkes appeared in the Yarn Spotlight segment on the 9th, 10th, and 11th seasons of Knitting Daily TV, a television show produced by Interweave Press for PBS.[9]
In March 2020, Parkes launched The Daily Respite, a brief daily general-interest newsletter via the Substack platform.[10] Her current undertaking is The Wool Channel, a multimedia effort to raise awareness and appreciation of wool. The Wool Channel outlets include a free newsletter and YouTube channel; paid members also have access to a long-form newsletter, a community app, and video content.[11]
In 2000 Parkes founded Knitter's Review, a knitting review website which became a major social media resource for knitters before the advent of Ravelry.[4] Using her experience creating the website Tech Shopper and technology acquired from the Quilter's Review,[12] she began to publish product reviews, a weekly newsletter, and created an interactive user forum. At its peak, the Knitter's Review Forums had over 70,000 members.[4] [13] For several years Knitter's Review sponsored a fundraising drive for Heifer International, raising in excess of $47,000.[14] In 2002 members of the forums created a small, in-person gathering that grew into a larger annual event known as the Knitter's Review Retreat.[15] By the time of the final Knitter's Review Retreat in 2015 it had become known as a "bucket list" item for knitters.[16] In 2015 she retired the old Knitter's Review site and forums, although many of her reviews and articles are still available at the site.[17]
Parkes is the author of seven books: the trilogy The Knitter's Book of...; the memoir The Yarn Whisperer, the travel memoir Knitlandia, and Vanishing Fleece, which chronicles her experience as a yarn producer. In addition, she edited the collection of essays A Stash of One's Own.
Her travel memoir Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for travel books in 2016.[18]
She edited the anthology A Stash of One's Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting go of Yarn, a collection of essays by knitting experts including Meg Swansen, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, and Debbie Stoller. It was named one of the top 10 lifestyle books for fall 2017 by Publishers Weekly.[19]
She is the narrator of the audiobooks The Yarn Whisperer: My Unexpected Life in Knitting, Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World, and Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool.
Parkes lives in Portland, Maine.[4]