Clara Parkes is an American author, yarn critic, and wool expert. Parkes has been described as “quite possibly the only writer you will ever read who can make a discussion of micron counts absolutely riveting.” A graduate of Mills College, she began her career in high tech publishing in San Francisco before moving to Maine and launching her online magazineKnitter's Review. 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. This project led to the creation of her own small-batch yarn company, Clara Yarn. Parkes is the author of seven books: the trilogy The Knitter's Book of...; the memoir The Yarn Whisperer, the travel memoir Knitlandia, and the upcoming Vanishing Fleece, which chronicles her experience as a yarn producer. In addition, she edited the collection of essays A Stash of One's Own. She is a Certified Level 1Wool Classer, and a member of the American Sheep Industry Association. Parkes lives in Portland, ME.
Knitter's Review
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. Using her experience creating the website Tech Shopper and technology acquired from the Quilter's Review, 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. For several years Knitter's Review sponsored a fundraising drive for Heifer International, raising in excess of $47,000. 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. By the time of the final Knitter's Review Retreat in 2015 it had become known as a "bucket list" item for knitters. In 2015 she retired the old Knitter's Review site and forums in favor of a more streamlined site.
Media presence
Her travel memoir Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for travel books in 2016. 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 Publisher's Weekly. 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. She is the narrator of the audiobooksThe Yarn Whisperer: My Unexpected Life in Knitting and Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World released by Random House Audio in 2016.
