Milli Abrams: “If I Can, Then I Will, and I Am!”
What kind of a knitting project would you take with you when rowing across the Atlantic Ocean? Not a question many knitters have had to consider — in fact, probably not a question ANY knitter has ever had to consider.
Except for Milli Abrams, 49.
Milli is a British knitter and the founder of Tribe Yarns, a curator of ethically sourced, high-quality yarns. Now, she is set to row 3,000 miles across the ocean solo and unsupported in a boat named Knitannia, in a bid to raise money for charity. She will participate in The World’s Toughest Row, an extreme endurance race starting in December, from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to English Harbour in Antigua.
If she succeeds, at just 5 feet / 152 centimetres tall Milli will be the shortest (and lightest) person to have done so. And, as she will celebrate her 50th birthday at sea, she will be only the fourth woman over 50 to complete the race.
All this with no background in rowing. Sounds quite extraordinary, doesn’t it?
“What I hope anyone can take from this is that it doesn’t matter if you don’t fit the stereotype — you still might be able to do something you thought you couldn’t,” Milli says.
Defining Moments
Milli describes herself as a “variety-driven, thrill-seeking, sleep-is-for-the-dead kind of soul”. This mentality has taken her to live around the world, from the Canadian Rockies to a tiny Caribbean Island. So, it’s not hard to see what Milli means when she says that active rest is pretty much the only kind of rest she can handle. And that is where knitting enters the picture.
“I have no natural patience — I want everything done yesterday, but knitting calms my mind and slows me down,” Milli says.
Milli has been knitting since she was seven — she still remembers the school holiday when her mum taught her, and she became so obsessed with it that she barely left the house. While Milli always knew that she wanted to own a yarn shop one day, she worked as an accountant for 20 years, seeing the shop as a retirement project.
That changed in 2017, however. Milli and her family were living in the British Virgin Islands, when Hurricane Irma caused widespread destruction. They were forced to move back to the UK and live with Milli’s parents in London. But for Milli, the thought of putting on a suit and getting a sensible job in the City seemed unbearable.
“That was one of those ‘life is too short, what am I doing’ moments. So, I started exploring other options and just kept coming back to yarn.”
What started as a small bricks-and-mortar shop in London has developed into a 90% online business with a staff of four, based in East Neuk of Fife, on the south-east coast of Scotland. “Neuk” is the Scots word for “nook” or “corner”, and this picturesque corner of Scotland has small fishing villages and pretty beaches. Born in London, Milli moved there with her family (a husband and a son who is now 21) after a prolonged recovery from Covid.
“We were looking for somewhere beautiful to live that was also healthy, with clean air and water.”
These days, Tribe Yarns is not just something that puts bread on the table — it’s a way of connecting with people passionate about the same things. For Milli, a milestone as an entrepreneur was realising she didn’t have to please everybody: instead, she could find her own “tribe”. This includes only selling ethically sourced and sustainable yarns, and currently also making the move to destock all yarns with any synthetic content.
“Another important thing is not to fall into the trap of stocking what’s fashionable, cool or popular,” Milli says. “For me, knitting has always been a way to rebel against the fashion industry. I want people to do what lights them up — not sticking with colours their husbands approve of, or what the fashion industry dictates is this year’s trends.”
She is also on a mission to gently push people out of their personal comfort zones. Milli is a knitter who won’t take on a new project if she’s not learning something new from it, and she is passionate about adding to other people’s skill base, too.
“At Tribe Yarns, we hope to enable our customers to experience new things, be it fibres, colours or techniques. We like to use patterns more as a suggestion and to encourage people to make everything their own.”
This outlook perfectly aligns with Milli’s rowing challenge — that, too, is all about pushing your boundaries.
Returning to the sea
Even though Milli has never rowed an ocean before, the sea is a familiar element to her. In 2010, she, her husband and their son, then seven, sold everything they owned and bought a 46-foot catamaran to sail around the world.
“Those were one of the best years of our lives, so I always knew I’d be going back to the ocean at some point.”
In subsequent years, Milli and her husband occasionally talked about sailing the oceans again. But while he pictured a similar trip — in a nice boat with flushing toilets — Milli’s reaction was always: “I wanna do it in a really hard way, struggling against the elements and coming out of it stronger.” So, when Milli by chance chatted with a friend of a friend who was set to row across the Atlantic, it felt like it was meant to be.
“He was only a few years younger than me, and even though he was a lot bigger, he didn’t seem like a superman. I asked if he thought this was something I could do, and he said: ‘Yeah, why not.’ So that was that — If I can, then I will, and I am!”
It wasn’t easy getting in, though. Only a certain number of people each year can participate in The World’s Toughest Row, and when Milli first got in touch with the organisation, their initial reaction was “no”.
“But I can be pretty persistent. I wrote to them multiple times a day, pestered them on the phone, and even bought an ocean rowing boat, before they said that I could have a spot.”
A long journey ahead
The race will begin in December, but the preparations have been going on for months. Milli trains five mornings a week with a physical trainer (even though she doesn’t even like exercising!) She has updated her sailing qualifications and attended courses on ocean survival, learning things such as navigation and high-frequency communication. One huge task is to collect sponsors. The row is expensive, and Milli is thankful to all her generous customers and business associates for their donations.
Preparing mentally is equally crucial. The most important thing is to ensure that no matter how sleep-deprived or hungry Milli is, she will remember the life-or-death safety drills.
“I am lucky to be older than most people doing this — I’ve been through some stuff, and I’ve also been in the ocean before, so I know how quickly it can get nasty out there. And I know how I tend to react when I’m panicking.”
For the average person, an expedition such as this raises dozens of practical questions. Will someone be monitoring her? (There is a tracking device on the boat but no support vessel.) What happens whiles she sleeps? (The boat just floats wherever it goes.) How does she go to the toilet? (There is a bucket.) How big is the boat? (About 23 feet / 7 metres long and 3 feet / 90 centimetres wide.)
But maybe the most important question is: what makes someone want to do something like this? Milli has noticed that while all the rowers have totally different personalities, they have one thing in common: a love of challenging themselves.
“I personally need to know that I’m making the most of every day and really experiencing life. And I do have a fairly high capacity for risk and pain.”
That doesn’t mean that she’s not scared — there are elements that frighten her, such as the possibility of the boat being attacked by marlin.
“And I am also scared about coming back changed. I am happy with my life, my marriage and my business, and I don’t want to change any of that. But I hope that because I am aware of this, I can work on it so it won’t happen.”
Limbering up those fingers
The journey will take approximately 70 days, and Milli plans to row for two hours and then rest for two hours, 24 hours a day. In the two hours she is off the oars, she needs to sleep, eat, wash and fix anything that’s broken — but hopefully, she will also be able to pick up her needles for a few minutes.
“When you are rowing that intensively, your hands sort of crank into the rowing position, so being able to use my fingers differently can be healthy for my hands.”
And the answer to that first question: which WIP will she take along? First of all, it can’t just be one project: she’ll need some simple stockinette stitch for the moments when she feels mentally exhausted, and a more challenging project for others. Nothing too warm or fluffy because it will get salty and sweaty — so no mohair.
“It will probably be linen or silk yarns, although the calluses already appearing on my hands can be catchy with very fine silk,” Milli ponders. “As for the colours, I feel like I’m not going to need any extra blue in my life, but I might miss green. Most of all, I hope I’ll finish something so I can wear it on the finishing line.”
Follow Milli on justonemorerow.org and @justonemorerow.atlantic on Instagram. Milli is raising funds for two causes: the environmental action charity The 2 Minute Foundation, and CHAS (Children’s Hospices Across Scotland).
TEXT: MAIJA KANGASLUOMA
PHOTOS: JAMIE SIMPSON, MILLI ABRAMS
This feature was first published in Laine issue 25.