This week the Canadian Screen Awards will be celebrated, and includes the nomination of Mary Galloway and Tiffany Joseph for their CBC Gem documentary feature, The Cowichan Sweater: Our Knitted Legacy. Along with wishing them the best, we want to update our knitting community on our Pay-It-Forward campaign in support of the cowichan sweater knitters featured in this doc.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out this documentary short feature which delves deep into the rich history and cultural significance of Cowichan sweaters, it is available to view oline free on CBC Gems. It came out back in October, and we have been working with the film’s producer Tiffany Joseph to collect and distribute skeins of Briggs and Little Country Roving to these west coast knitters. Read more here.

We have just heard that the Little family of Briggs & Little will be adding an additional 40lbs of wool (80 cakes of Country Roving) to these efforts!! To date we have collected:

• 212 cakes of country roving (~$3200 value), including the 80 provided by Briggs & Little
• 3 handcrafted cottage spinning wheels (locally made spinning wheels specifically geared to spin bulkier yarns)

We will continue to collect Pay It Forward donations until the film’s one year anniversary in October. If you want to support, you can do so here.

Seventy cakes of yarn and two of the spinning wheels have already been distributed, and our next installment of this donation will be shipped directly to the community from Briggs and Little, and will include an additional 140 cakes to arrive early next week. I especially love how this initiative has kickstarted a chain of generosity that continues to grow; the most recent donation of a cottage spinning wheel comes from one of our own teachers who can trace its origins from the same community that it will be heading back into!

Wanna know more about our collective efforts? Check out our update from last March.

Also, be sure to read more about this amazing film and its impacts in this article in Victoria’s Time Columnist from last week.

Join me in celebrating The Cowichan Sweater, both learning about its knitted legacy and in direct support of this local gem. Congratulations to Mary, Tiffany and the entire filmmaking team behind this gem on your nomination; you will be in our hearts on May 31st, 2024!