Thea Vesterby: Healing through knitting – one stitch at a time

By Signe Hansen | Photos: Victor Low Sørensen

With yarn running through the hands and attention held by the rhythmic creation of patterns, knitting can foster both calm and focus. For Thea Vesterby, that combination became transformative. After a successful digital career, impressive sporting achievements – and severe stress, she found healing in knitting. Now dedicated to her business, VesterbyCrea, she is releasing her second knitting book, Maske for maske, this month.

For much of her adult life, Vesterby was accustomed to moving fast. She entered the digital industry when the internet was still new in Denmark and spent more than two decades helping global companies navigate an increasingly digital world. Outside work, her drive found an outlet in marathon and Ironman training. Her life revolved around ambition, discipline and the next goal – until her body and mind could no longer keep pace.

Within several years, Vesterby was hit by stress three times. The final episode was severe enough to change the direction of her life and forced her to reconsider a career she had once found deeply exciting. “My old career was about creating something on a screen that was basically old the next day,” she says. “There was very little you could point to and say, ‘I made that.’”

Thea Vesterby: Healing through knitting – one stitch at a time

Two stitches and a new direction

With her capacity for work and concentration badly affected, Vesterby needed something that could quiet her system while still engaging her mind. In 2019, her adult twin daughters suggested that she learn to knit, just as her mother had done for most of her life. When her mother taught her, something changed.

“When I started knitting, I could physically feel something waking up in my brain again,” she recalls. “My thoughts were focused on the knitting, and at the same time there was a physical calm. It helped me start using my head again.”

What began as part of her recovery gradually developed into designing, and then into VesterbyCrea. By August 2023, the business had grown enough for Vesterby to leave consulting behind and commit to it full-time. Today, VesterbyCrea offers patterns for sweaters, cardigans and accessories in several languages, while workshops and talks allow her to share the experience behind the designs. Her first knitting book, Strik i Struktur, followed in 2024, and her new book, Maske for maske, takes the connection between knitting, concentration and mental restoration further.

Thea Vesterby: Healing through knitting – one stitch at a time

A book built around meditative knitting

Rather than designing pieces in plain stocking stitch, Vesterby consistently works with structure, cables or colour work – patterns that demand enough attention to hold the mind in the present. “All my designs contain structure or colorwork – something you have to think about, but which can also bring you into a meditative flow,” she explains.

That idea is at the heart of Maske for maske, which brings together 18 projects – nine previously released designs and nine created for the book. Developed over around seven months, the collection explores different structures and techniques while using the concentration required by a pattern as part of the experience. “That is what knitting does for me,” says Vesterby. “You come down a gear, let the hours pass and process something through your hands.”

Having spent her childhood in Switzerland, Vesterby, a native German speaker, is publishing the book in both Danish and German.

Having been forced to slow down by stress, Thea Vesterby took up knitting and founded VesterbyCrea. Photo: Thea Vesterby

More than a piece of craft

As Vesterby began giving talks and workshops, she discovered how strongly her story resonated with others. Women would approach her afterwards, sometimes in tears, and tell her that knitting had helped them through difficult periods too. The encounters reinforced her belief that knitting offers something beyond the finished garment.

In her book <em>Maske for maske</em>, Vesterby focuses on the meditative and restorative effect of knitting.

In her book Maske for maske, Vesterby focuses on the meditative and restorative effect of knitting.

Moreover, coming from what she describes as the hard consulting industry, Vesterby found a striking contrast in knitting. “The community simply opened up and invited me in,” she says, with fellow designers becoming close friends as well as valued colleagues.

Spreading and strengthening that sense of possibility and community has increasingly become part of the mission of VesterbyCrea. “Knitting is more than fashion and more than a piece of craft,” she says. “I want to put words to how much it can mean to us. The meditative side of knitting is the focus of this book because it is my own personal story.”

Publication: Maske for maske, September 2026. Published in Danish and German.

Thea Vesterby: Healing through knitting – one stitch at a time