Our design process respects the tradition of textiles, history, craftsmanship, and collaboration—while also experimenting in ways of sustainability. Our knit library is a wearable collection for everyone, offering a range of classic, colourful, and timeless shapes for all body types and ages. We offer you the finest knitwear, made with the utmost care and attention to detail and quality.

This collection is not limited to season or market, allowing us to do away with “expiration” dates. Once we sell out of our knit inventory, it will conclude the collection.

We view the production process, similar to the art of Kintsugi. Kintsugi 金継ぎ (golden joinery) or Kintsuguroi 金繕い (golden repairs) is the art of mending broken ceramics by placing the puzzle-like pieces back together again. This Japanese restoration technique uses lacquer and natural resins made from tree sap mixed with gold, platinum, and silver dust.

We selected only high-quality fibers from farms we trust. Our knitwear shapes can be purchased as they were produced, a blank canvas for available and custom embroidery options, or along with our knit kits to create your own work on our blank canvas. The Hesperios colour palette plays with monochromatic variations, and shades of pastels, neutrals. 

The poet Susan Howe tells us that “the English word ‘text’ comes from Medieval Latin textus ‘style or texture of a work,’ literally ‘thing woven,’ from the past participle stem of textere: ‘to weave, to join, fit together, construct.

The Hesperios knit library represents the second phase of our operations that began in 2020. We will continue to offer our existing classic knits for sale and will continue to collaborate with artists to create new embroidered work from existing inventory. We currently have sufficient inventory for both our embroidery services and our collaborations with artists and customers. This library of classic knits are extremely limited in number. We don’t have a considerable surplus of inventory, and we’ve never destroyed an item. If an item doesn’t sell, we’ll donate it, or consider it for other initiatives. 

Moving forward, new work will be produced entirely on a green system and a transparent infrastructure that does not rely on fossil fuels. Our research and activities will be available as data sets on the Hesperios website, so that others can benefit from our research.

We are committed to only working with factories and suppliers that do not exploit others or our environment. It is essential that whatever we produce is produced thoughtfully, and that we consider any long-term effects each item may have, whether environmental or social.

We believe that if you take the best care of your sweater, it will last forever, and we are delighted to continue to offer our lifetime warranty on your knit. If there is an issue or a hole, you can send it back, and we will try to fix it. If not, we will recycle the sweater and send you a new one. (Shrinkage, unfortunately, is not something we will replace.) 

Thorough and complete care instructions for your garment, along with a history of the sweater, can be found online. The available inventory will be the last of our knitwear collection, allowing us to focus on other design possibilities. 

Hesperios knitwear was produced in Peru with materials sourced from vendors that uphold our operational and quality standards. Hesperios always aims to make quality, long-lasting products. By partnering with skilled local factories and artisans, we ensure the highest quality of the final product. 

Our production process honours the traditions of craftsmanship and utilizes the highest quality alpaca and wool. We reject the expiration dates imposed by seasonal fashion. We do not produce without purpose. Long-term planning and careful consideration of the consequences of our actions are integral to our work. 

The fast-paced tradition of consumerism is not the Hesperios tradition—we have set our own calmer, more peaceful production rhythms.

“The Hesperios knit library is set to reestablish continuity of craft knowledge, sharing with a virtual community the patterns and tips for creating each sweater, just as this knowledge would have passed through communities of the past”.

Celebrating the tradition of textiles, craftsmanship, and collaboration, the Hesperios Knit Library is a wearable collection, offering a range of classic, colorful, timeless shapes for all ages and body types.

By tracing the origins of knitwear in more than a dozen countries, we learned that so much of what we do builds on the craftsmanship of those that came before us. Each knit in our library has a point of origin, a distant ancestor or family likeness, and we have named them after the rich history and natural wonders of the countries that inspired their creation.

For example, the Fisherman and the Carrageen jumpers have roots in Ireland and will arrive at your door with a map of memories, a collage of images that tells the tale of the sweaters favored by Irish seafarers.

The countries represented in our knit library include:

Sverige, Norge, Denmark, Ísland, Rossiya, Éire, Alba, Nederland, England, France, Elláda, Italia, España, Canada, United States, Perú, Misr, Al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah, Botswana, Nippon, People’s Republic of China, India, Sri Lanka, Aotearoa, and Bahrain.

Hesperios founder Autumn Hrubý created collages based on her research, which began with an investigation of the origins of the shape’s materials used in each design and how they evolved along a historical timeline. Considering the people, landscape, resources, and what was occurring during history, Autumn sought to understand why these particular knits became popular and along the way made many surprising discoveries.

For instance, recognizing the integral role that knitting and textiles played in code-breaking during World War II inspired Autumn to develop the Artist Knit Kits and to collaborate with writer Julia Berick on projects like “The Medium is the Message: Textiles & Code-Breaking” and the Artifacts for Hesperios Knit Library.

Like the journals of a curious world traveler, these collages and artifacts celebrate the minutia and the multitudes of the places and cultures where the knit designs originated. We hope they will encourage others to delight in the unique histories, ecologies, and artistic lineages of these nations. And we hope that when you pull your knit from your closet, these threads of history and geography will weave together with your own memories and associations with the item — dinner with a treasured friend, or the color of a friendly room.

“‘The other ambassadors warn me of famines, extortion, conspiracies, or else they inform me of newly discovered turquoise mines, advantageous prices in marten furs, suggestions for supplying damascened blades. And you?’ the Great Khan asked Polo. ‘You return from lands equally distant and can tell me only the thoughts that come to a man who sits on his doorstep at evening to enjoy the cool air. What is the use, then, of all your traveling?’”

—Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver”.

Hesperios artist knit kits are an artist-led sweater project, hosted by Hesperios. Artists from our community are given creative freedom to use our sweater palettes as a blank canvas to create.  

Hesperios knit kits are do-it-yourself creative kits for all ages. Each sweater comes with a tool kit of various pointed crochet needles and colored yarn to help you create your own design.

Our knit kit can be purchased separately. It comes with darning needles and 25 yards of various colours of sustainable yarn from a family-owned company in Maine. We also offer a series of sweaters made by artists in limited-editions. To see more, view our Artists page.

Inspired by cryptology, the arts and crafts movement of the early 20th century, and the feminist movement of the 1970’s, the knit kit references artists such as Eva Hesse, Anni Albers, Judy Chicago, and Vanessa Barragão. Owing to its utility, knitwear is oftentimes overlooked as an art form. We would urge you to view these sweaters as a blank canvas and your embellishments as a vehicle for your artistic expression. 

“With such projects as the knit kit, artists will embellish and crochet Hesperios knits, which pays as much tribute to the work that went into each sweater as it does to the creative vision of the participating artists.