Ayiti

The Ayiti Collection is something I’ve wanted to do ever since I started using my designs and patterns as a mean to share more about my culture, ancestry, and motherland.

This is the Haitian Revolution told backwards, starting with one shawl set to be released on the 1st of January 2022 (Independence Day), a spring/summer top to be released on the 18th of May 2022 (Haitian Flag Day), and a sweater coming out the 14th of August 2022 (Bois Caiman Ceremony which started the revolution).

Pre-order the full collection will starting on November 29, 2021 to receive each pattern as they become available; or, purchase the patterns individually.

Desalinyèn Release 1 Jan 2022

Shawl Pattern in DK yarn

This shawl pattern shows the ups-and downs of the country and its people. The colors being dropped and picked as the shawl grows signify the resiliency of the Haïtian people through devastating earthquakes, hurricanes, and political unrest.

I will also share about the major role Dessalines played in the independence of the nation and more on the national anthem of “La Dessalinienne”   named in honor of Jean Jacques Dessalines.

Catherine Flon Release 18 May 2022

Sleeveless Top Pattern in Fingering Yarn

Haïti’s very first flag as an independent nation was created by Dessalines when he took a French flag and tore out the white center. 

Catherine Flon, Dessalines’ goddaughter, sewed the two remaining colors together. 

This act symbolized the identity and history of the Haitian people and made her the most widely celebrated woman in Haïtian history. She is the woman who sewed together the very fabric of our liberty.

Bwa Kayiman Release 14 Aug 2022

Sweater Pattern in DK yarn

The event led by the vodou priest named Boukman, a maroon leader from Jamaica, and a voodoo high priestess.  launched the slave revolts in August 1791 that led to freedom and independence of the enslaved people of Haïti from France in 1804.

“Despite rigid prohibitions, voodoo was indeed one of the few areas of totally autonomous activity for the African slaves. As a religion and a vital spiritual force, it was a source of psychological liberation in that it enabled them to express and reaffirm that self-existence they objectively recognized through their own labor . . . Voodoo further enabled the slaves to break away psychologically form the very real and concrete chains of slavery and to see themselves as independent beings; in short it gave them a sense of human dignity and enabled them to survive.”