where it all started: oma riek
When I was a young girl, I loved spending time at my grandma’s place –an authentical dyke house w/ a casual and welcoming atmosphere. My granny, Riek, and her husband, Gerrit, preferred playing loud opera music, and my granny loved cooking for unexpected visitors. But her all-time favourit pastime? –Knitting! She always had multiple projects on her knitting needles, and when she came to visit us, she never arrived without her knitting. She would knit unapologetically, even during family gatherings.
In those early days, I became fascinated by how she could create a complete garment from a single thread. One day she taught me how to knit, and that’s when a lifelong addiction began! I started by making dresses for my Barbies (I was a true barbie girl), and during my teenage years, I bought magazines like ELLE and Vogue. I would calculate how to recreate designer knitwear from catwalk photos or copy on the Marco Polo cable sweaters I saw in advertisements.
Later, when I started dating, my mum would joke, “There he is!” whenever a boyfriend arrived on his Suzuki motorcycle. I would quickly hide whatever knitting project I was working on behind the couch, forbidding my family from telling him I was a knitter. But when I knitted a sweater as a Christmas gift for one boyfriend, I had to admit I’d made it myself. To my surprise, it wasn’t weird—it was actually cool!
Knitting was always part of my life. Even during weekends when I’d go out with my girlfriends every Saturday night, there were moments of hesitation—I’d be so curious to see how my latest knitting project would turn out. In the end, though, going out always won.
Years later, I knitted a baby hat as a gift for a friend’s newborn. When she visited a baby store, the shop owner kept complimenting the hat. Eventually, my friend gave the shop my number… and that’s where this happy-vibes story of BIEQ Knitwear began!
