The story behind our Etsy store

As long as I can remember myself my Mother was knitting.

Valentyna was born in Ukraine right before the World War II, survived all the difficulties of war period and first years of recovery, and of course, living in a big family made her and her sisters very handy. As a kids, they helped their parents to build a house(!) - it still stands, by the way! They planted a beautiful garden around it to grow some fruits, nuts & vegetables, got some chickens and this gave them a daily food on a table. They were sewing, knitting and stitching to save some on home essentials and all of these together helped them to go through the years of recovery.

Later in life her knitting hobby grew into passion - she is never letting go of her favorite needles! I am still cherishing the lovely mittens with ornaments - perfect for the freezing Russian winters - she made for me almost 30 years ago!

Since her husband of 30 years passed away she became very lonely. She tried to live on her own for some period of time but this seems to be not working for her. So, we decided to give it a try and invited her to move in with us.


She did, and since last summer she is living with us and makes all these little knitted treasures you can find in her Etsy store (www.socksandmittens.etsy.com).

I have to tell you - I really love her work! She taught me how to knit when I was 5 years old but it did not became a special thing for me. I made a couple of sweaters for myself but never moved any further with this. But Mom... she is so creative & energetic! She is knitting non-stop every day - I wish I could do this!

She is surrounded by family again and happy with her passion hobby - this is where are we now...