She was a 1979 World bronze medallist[4] and two-time Scott Tournament of Hearts champion (1976, 1979).

In 2006, she was inducted into Canadian Curling Hall of Fame together with all of the 1979 Lindsay Sparkes team.

The first-ever set of curling instructional films was developed in 1980 and Knowles was one of the models used in the six-part series.

In 1982, the Canadian Curling Association introduced the National Team Leader Program and Knowles was the first person to assume the role, travelling to the women's world championship with Canada's representative, the team of Colleen Jones, Kay Smith, Monica Jones and Barbara Jones-Gordon.

In 1979, she and her sister and teammate Robin Wilson, who worked as a manager at Scott Paper company, began the push to have Scott paper sponsor the Canadian Women's Curling Championship.