I’ve been a fan of Tom Bihn since I was gifted a Swift by my bosses at Three Bags Full several years ago, and their product videos were the inspiration for the ShopCasts that I record for the store every week!

Whenever the crew at TB put out a call for participation (testing out Vulcana fabric, or receiving selvedge scraps of their Dyneema fabric for a crafting challenge), I would jump at the chance… and I also chatted with them via Twitter whenever I saw a TB bag around town or if my Swift had had a mention-worthy adventure!

Their invitation to review the line of knitting bags was a very pleasant surprise, and I was even happier when they added an Imago and Field Journal Notebook to the shipment at my request - you’ll see why I wanted to include these as “knitting tools” in their reviews!

I love Tom Bihn shows off the TB gear I had acquired on my own over a few years.

The Swift

The Little Swift

The Field Journal Notebook
(since recording this, I have received the graph paper insert, and it is AWESOME!)

The Imago


Organizer Pouches


Yarn Stuff Sacks

I want to thank all of you for following my blog. One of the few resolutions I am making for 2012 is to be more consistent with updates and posts, so you will be seeing more of me in the upcoming months!

(Whoops! I just noticed that I have failed to blog about Corinth and Thornia… too many projects on the go, I’m slipping! I’ll put those at the head of the queue for 2012.)

To celebrate the holidays (and maybe give you something fun to knit for yourself once gift-knitting is over?), I’m offering a 50% discount code for all patterns in my Ravelry store until December 31st. The code is “happyholidays” which can either be typed in when prompted as you finish shopping, or you can follow this link to go directly to your Ravelry shopping cart and then choose to add patterns from there.

Sorry, this sale doesn’t include any of my Twist Collective or Interweave patterns due to my contractual obligations!

This is Asher, from Twist Collective’s Fall 2011 issue, find it on Ravelry here.

Asher came to life after a trip to Portland in June 2010, with an hour (possibly more) spent at Yarnia combining a bunch of thin strands of yarn together to make myself a custom blend of chunky goodness. I didn’t have a plan for it at the time aside from “big cozy sweater” but swatching with it while on the train ride home eventually suggested that it liked the slip-stitch rib pattern I used for a simple scarf design, Picker’s Delight.

I also realized that the second yarn I had created at Yarnia, a blend of smooth strands that made a worsted weight yarn, coordinated nicely with its chunky sibling, and I started playing with combinations. Eventually, the yoke design was born, with garter stitch, concentric increases, and contrast piping to separate each ring. A needle size change helped the garter move smoothly into the slip-stitch rib, and I was off!

Okay, truth? That sweater is still in that state of completion (or lack thereof). When I got the thumbs-up from Twist Collective after submitting this photo and sketch, I did my usual squeal and happy dance, and then promptly sought out a more commercially available yarn that would work. A shipment of Cascade 220 had been delivered to Three Bags Full, and in the process of unpacking, pricing, and stocking the new colours, this purplish grey caught my eye and stuck. The purplish brown was a good choice for the contrast trim, and both came home with me that night.

The biggest difference between my second prototype and the sample for the magazine? Weight. Cascade 220 held doubled is HEAVY… which can be pretty wonderful if you think that heavy + warm = perfect (I do!), but the gorgeous Berkshire Bulky from Valley Yarns knit up into a light and lofty sweater that would still trap heat but rest more easily on one’s shoulders! I loved the colour combination that Kate sent me, and was happy to knit the sample version as soon as mine was off my needles.

In case you can’t see it in the design lines, I was pretty inspired by Elizabeth Zimmerman. Her love of the knit stitch calls to me - I have made two adult-sized Surprise Jackets, and one (so far) in the original baby size, and because I knit continental style, the slipped-rib pattern used here doesn’t feel at all like working a purl stitch. Jared Flood’s version of her TomTen design was also in the back of my head - I love the contrast shoulder lines he created!

Some mods: my prototype has all of the contrast lines done as piping: four rows of stockingette stitch with a single strand of Cascade 220 which are then closed to make a rounded trim line (see Piper and Lallans for more of this accent), and a row of piping on the back of the hood just before the shaping begins. I designed a tab for the back, but haven’t actually sewn this on yet! Last one: because I’m on the busty side (in case you hadn’t noticed from that photo!), I shifted the break for the sleeves back a little bit on each side, so my front width is wider than my back width.

Vancouver has been having a wonderful Autumn, with many days of crisp sunshine and cool evenings spaced between the rainy drizzle that we know and love (or at least accept..), and Asher is the perfect outer layer to pop on over a tshirt and still be snuggly warm. I love the giant pockets and hood in this weather, and am designing more sweaters with these features!

Last shot: this was the set of the photo shoot that produced all of the detailed photos above, plus many that I will be using to update designs already on Ravelry as well as some new accessory patterns. My friend Andrew is a talented photographer, and we have been trading skills: I am teaching him American Sign Langauge basics, in exchange for pictures like these. Oh, see that sweater on the mannequin? It is destined for self-publishing soonish, drop me a line at christa@christaknits.com if you’re interested in test-knitting for me!

.. and I have two (!!) patterns in it, my first garments for Twist!

1) Boundless, a complex-cabled cape, on Twist and on Ravelry

2) Asher, a simple, joy-to-knit garter and slibbed-rib sweater coat, on Twist and on Ravelry

I’m working hard to meet another design deadline fast approaching, but I will share more on the creation of these two pieces another time!

(Okay, I wrote this a couple months ago, but forgot to post it, sorry! Another catch-up post about the Bandha Hoodie is on its way too.. but in the meantime, if you want to see the other neat knitting-related thing I’ve been doing lately, check out the video ShopCasts I’ve been shooting for Three Bags Full!)

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I’m so happy to announce that I have another pattern up at Twist Collective! This is Lara, from the Winter 2010 issue:

I have been playing with hood designs for a couple years, both those attached to sweaters and stand-alone versions that in the past hadn’t really worked. When the Mood Boards for this issue were sent out, I was inspired by the skating story to try again, so my submission included a sketch of a hood along with a couple other hat ideas… and the hood was accepted, yay!

When I learned that I would get to work with Unwind Yarns Merlot, I was especially happy – Shannon (the dyer) is from the Vancouver area as well and I have actually met her in person a couple of times at the LYS where I work and at mutual friends’ parties! Her yarns always get rave reviews at the shop, and I love her semi-solid colours. Though I wouldn’t have chosen bright golden orange for ME, I totally understood Kate’s editorial vision of high-impact colours that would really pop against the white background of a skating rink, and the Glow colourway does a great job of showing the stitch patterns!

This is where my design story goes downhill a bit: When the yarn for Lara arrived, I was already working on meeting the deadline for a sweater for another publication (the Bandha hoodie for Knitscene Winter/Spring 2011), so I didn’t jump into working on it right away. I knew that I was going to be flying out to Toronto the weekend before our designs were due, so I thought that if I started it a couple weeks before that, I could have it done and pop it in the mail from Toronto for a quick delivery to Montreal.



Lesson Learned from Lara: don’t leave things until the last minute!

I started swatching… and swatched… and swatched… and swatched… I was struggling with a couple of things: my original idea and sketch had the vines starting at the bottom corners of the hood and growing in both directions (towards centre top and back neck), and I just couldn’t get the vine AND the background to both increase in a satisfactory way… and then I was also having issues with choosing background stitches that would lay flat rather than curl the edges around, but that would also let the delicate vines stand out without being overwhelmed by a lot of extra texture. An email to Kate came back with her approval to move away from the original construction concept, and a suggestion that a simple purl background (like the one used in Red Oak in the Fall issue) would block flat if it was kept in scale to the vine patterning.

More swatching included working on the corner design and general construction, and testing different versions of the leafy vines. So the deadline is now looming.. but I’m still feeling pretty okay because I have the whole day of flying to Toronto, plus the weekend at my in-laws, to finish it up and get it blocked. Great! Only one problem: I’m a perfectionist.

I was still swatching on the flight over, and through the first day of our visit… and then continued knitting like a fiend for the next two days to get it done! (An apology to my niece and the rest of Chris’ family: next time I’ll be more available for hanging out and playing, promise!) I-cord added, leaf tassels done, blocked, charts done and notes written… into the mail it went! Whew!


And then came the email.

I have give Kate a lot of credit: she has excellent taste (I LOVE so many designs in every issue), the drive and skill to get issues of Twist out on a regular schedule, AND the ability to write very clear and straightforward emails when she’s not satisfied with a submitted design!

Lesson Learned from Lara: refer back to the original sketch frequently, and consult early!


Kate pointed out that my hood had morphed to a point of being unrecognizable from my original sketch: it was bigger, the vine pattern was scaled larger in relation to the overall hood, and I had changed the shape of the front bands dramatically to the point where it reminded her of the plastic rain bonnets that our grandmothers used to wear! Whoops, so NOT a good thing! A few more emails back and forth, clarifying sizes and shapes and timeframes, and then I was in a flurry to get the rework done in time to make the original photoshoot deadline.

I had to wait for the original hood to come back so I could frog and reuse the yarn, so in the meantime I started swatching again for smaller vines. You can’t see this from the photos, but the vines on both sides of the face point UP, due to being worked in two pieces and a quick graft at the centre top… I thought this was a decent solution rather than having upside-down leaves on one side of the face! Another construction tweak kept the hood smaller - the point on the first version was a huge thing reminiscent of Lord of the Ring costumes! (The fact that a lot of my friends are into costuming and Faerie World gatherings made this seem like a good thing at first…)

With Kate’s guidance, the second version (what you are now seeing as Lara[Ravelry link]) got finished, and shipped back in time to make the ice rink photoshoot. I agree with her that this smaller version is really cute, and from the response I can track on Ravelry, it is obvious that many knitters think so, too!


Lesson Learned from Lara: an initial rejection is not the end of the world, and the acceptance of critique and feedback can result in the creation of a really cool thing!

These lessons (and a couple others I learned during this project) will serve me well as I continue building my career as a knitwear designer – thanks so much, Kate!

For those of you who will be knitting Lara: there is one technique in the vine charts that I may have invented (or unvented) called a Combine. This came to life after hours of swatching leaf variations, trying to keep the edge of the increasing leaf body clean and crisp, while also managing a decrease somewhere so the stitch count wouldn’t change. The result is a combination of a left-lifted increase worked with an immediate SSK decrease: the Combine!

(Have you seen this technique before? Let me know, I’d love to see how other designers use it!)


Here’s my latest version: knit following the pattern, still using Unwind Yarns Merlot DK but in a yummy green this time. This one hadn’t been blocked yet when I took the photo, so you can see the issue with curling edges that I was worried about..but blocking really does make it go away! (see more photos on Ravelry)

I always enjoy seeing my patterns worked up in different colour combinations and yarns – the variations on Piper and Lallans posted on Ravelry are neat! I really appreciate your support for my designs, and can’t wait to see your Laras!

To celebrate Ravelry’s newly created Promotions coding for shopkeepers, I’m offering a 20% discount off all patterns in my shop starting today (yay Casey!) and going through to the end of my birthday (midnight on Sunday Sep 19th, yay me!)

There will be a box for a discount code at some point during your transaction, just type “CASEYROCKS” for the 20% off deal.

Visit my Ravelry shop here.

Enjoy!

The following is an email conversation that I had with Shannon Okey, who recently wrote and published The KnitGrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design. Shannon kindly provided me with a review copy, and if you read all the way down past the interview, you’ll see how my design business has already grown from the advice she gave!

Christa: Hi Shannon! I’ve followed your blog tour - interesting interviews! I liked how different bloggers had a different focus to their questions, based on where they themselves were in their designing career. I’m still quite new to design and have just started getting published in the last year, so some of my questions will be coming from that angle!

If you were to make a graph to show the various things you do to generate income, how does your “minimum to maximum effort or time committment” chart of various work tasks relate to your “minimum to maximum financial gain” chart? Are you happy with your current balance, or is there something you’d like to shift more time towards?


Shannon: THAT is a good question. I always make more money when a project involves more writing than knitting, because I am spectacularly fast writing-wise, and not so much knitting-wise. I wish I was a superspeedy knitter, but I’m not. So if there is an article to be written, or a book, or… that’s going to be less time for more money. Of course, with the knitting, once that pattern is done and published, it can generate income infinitely — something magazine articles don’t do!

C: Chapter 12 in your book has amazing interviews with other designers talking about how they work… can you paint us a picture of how YOU work? Do you structure your day/week/month with specific to-do lists, or bounce around doing whatever work you feel like doing, or…? Do you hit spikes of frenzied activity through the year, or is it all fairly steady? Oh, and relating to a discussion happening in the Designers forum on Ravelry, do you ever make things from other people’s designs? How do you balance work knitting with personal knitting?



S: I can’t even tell you when the last time I knit something from someone else’s pattern. And that’s not to sound snotty — I WANT to, I just don’t have TIME to — so I’ve been steadily accumulating a collection of Things To Knit When I Have Time. When that ‘when’ will be, I do not know.

As a general rule, I’ve usually got short term, medium term and long term projects going at any given time. Short time is stuff with deadlines in the next week or two, medium is a few months out, long term is “longer than that or when I get to it.” This also intersects with other peoples’ own project deadlines. So, while Hunter (Hammersen, who is currently doing a sock book for Cooperative Press) is aiming to have her book’s text done (and me editing it!) in the next month or so, there are also longer-term things on the agenda such as getting the photos done, finishing the layout, etc. What this means in all reality is checking today’s to-do list and finishing as many things as I can, and adding to the list as I go along. It’s neverending!

C: I’ve been getting some opportunities to work with print and online magazines and knitting book authors lately, and I’ve been making some rookie mistakes along the way. Thankfully, I have also had my apologies accepted and am learning from these experiences! In your work as a publisher, what are some unforgivable mistakes that would keep you from giving a designer a second chance? Is there a higher level of exceptionally poor behavior that would have you actively warn your publishing peers away from working with someone?



S: Refusing to use the yarn the magazine sent and actually sending it back without any consultation. Now, I’ve been in a position where a yarn isn’t the nicest yarn ever — Nicky Epstein put it best, you have to be willing to work with everything from acrylic to cashmere — but the only time I’ve told the editor “sorry, I can’t work with this” was when the yarn was actually a PROBLEM. Not “I don’t like it” but “if this pattern is knit with this yarn, THIS bad thing will happen and your readers will be very sad.” And a good editor will come back and say ok, “what do you suggest?”, or “how can we fix that, then?” Look, if acrylic is good enough for Nicky Epstein, you can sure as hell put up with it, too! So I think that petty, demanding behavior that doesn’t have some solid reasoning behind it is pretty much a dealbreaker.

C: I’m curious about designing for mass production, being the person who knits swatches and then sells them to apparel producers (at least, that’s how I have heard it works!). Do you have any experience in this area to share, or links to resources for designers who want to add this revenue stream to their work?



S: I don’t have much experience with this but from what little I know about it, you’d probably have a better shot at this kind of work if you lived in New York or another major garment manufacturing city — if I was running Ralph Lauren’s knitwear division, I’d probably favor the people who could talk to me on the phone and pop by the office the next day with the sample.

C: Now that the Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design has been published and out for reviews and readers to buy, is there anything that you wish you would have added or emphasized more in the book? Is there an update or Vol 2 or a companion workbook coming down the pipeline?



S: I think that an updated edition would be likely in a year or so because no doubt some of the technology will have changed by then. The beauty of having so many people purchasing the book digitally is that sending out updates is not only possible, but easy! There are some other related books coming down the pipeline but not for a little while yet…

Thanks, Christa!



C: Thanks so much, Shannon!

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The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design is worth its weight in gold: it doesn’t teach you anything about designing with ease, grading patterns, or shaping a sleeve cap, but you will learn everything you need to know about the background work that a knitwear designer does to be successful!

Managing social media, using professional organizations, submitting to magazines, writing book proposals, providing customer support, dealing with printers, developing wholesale relationships… it’s all here, and presented in a friendly, easy-to-read format that feels like a sit-down chat with Shannon (and the dozens of industry professionals that she interviews in Chapter 12!)

My own journey of design included a wonderful mentorship with Kim Werker (we swapped her business guru-ship for some of my hoop dance classes) which got me to the point of submitting proposals to Twist Collective and Interweave Knits. Now that I’ve been published with Twist, Knitscene, and have a few patterns coming out in other people’s books in 2011, I was at a bit of a loss for figuring out the next step. Thanks to Shannon’s book and the conversation we had, I now have a contract in hand for my first knitting article!

Shannon points out that patterns have the potential to generate income for a lifetime, where magazine articles don’t… but I was shocked (and excited!) to find out that an article pays nearly the same as a fairly simple sweater pattern.. without the time spent knitting!

I am already plotting future article ideas (some with accompanying designs, some without), and figuring out the best publisher for each… and I’m thrilled! Next on my list: bump up the frequency of my blog posts, get back into podcasting, and figure out the balance of self-publishing and submissions that will work best for me and my empire-building! (Hee!)

Thanks again, Shannon - this has been awesome!

Visit Shannon’s blog for the other stops along her blog tour!

Whee!

I have such a hard time keeping secrets, but here’s another can’t-tell-until-it-is-live project: Lallans for the Fall 2010 issue of Twist Collective, a fabulous online knitting magazine (but you knew that already, right?)

The picture above is of the prototype - see the Lallans pattern page here or on Twist Collective for photos of the real version (this length of ribbing didn’t work out with the short rows).

The mood boards for this issue included three stories: a woodland shoot, with the words “walk along quiet byways, wander through the woods”; What Would Mary-Heather Wear, a colourful and quirky tribute to the stylish Mary-Heather Cogar who is a knitting designer and Ravelry employee and lover of cute German Shepard dogs (hers is named Charlie); and then a black and white selection of glamourous, edgy, strong rocking women.

I submitted ideas for all three stories, and Lallans was chosen - this was the one that had already been fully knit, and perhaps my completed hats are easier to judge than my sketched ideas! (Piper was submitted in the same way, with photos of a completed hat along with drawings of other concepts.) I thought that design would work particularly well for the woodlands idea, as it had a bit more of the kicking-around-in-the-fields flavour and less of Piper’s glam or the playfulness that I’d associate with Mary-Heather!





The design itself was a sideline project that came after I finished my NaKniSweMo hoodie in January. I had used the braiding technique to trim all around the bottom, front, and hood edges before applying the final ribbing band, and I really loved the way it looked! (Note, however, that I did NOT love applying it to the hoodie! Lesson learned: braid is good on small things, like hats or mittens. That much twisted yarn as you work on hundreds of stitches, not so fun.) I wanted to use piping again (yes, I’m still on that kick) and also throw in a bit more texture, so that’s where those garter ridges joined us. The slip stitch pattern was tougher: I consulted a few different stitch dictionaries, but didn’t find anything I liked, so I started playing around. This pattern that resulted is the colourwork equivalent of the textured stitch in Picker’s Delight, balanced for easy shifting between colours and rows, and simple to remember! There’s a bit of fiddly work at the start and end of some of the rounds, but I think it does a good job of helping to minimize the jog.

This hat had the original working title of Hound, since I thought that the slip stitch patterning looked like the weave structure called Houndstooth. In the second or third round of edits, Kate suggested we rename it Lallans, the Scottish word for Lowlands (the region that developed the Houndstooth pattern). I always find naming patterns hard (read about Piper’s process here) but was content with Hound.. but Lallans is a lovely fit! I have a friend visiting Scotland right now, so I’ll be getting coached in the proper pronunciation.

Knitting the two samples was fun, and I loved the colour combinations that Kate chose for me. The Caledon Hills Worsted Wool was delicious to work with, too! One of the things I really enjoy about designing for publications that provide yarn support is that I get to experience a wide range of fibres, not just what the local shops carry..

And finally, I really love the photo shoot with the model digging around under the hood of a vehicle - my sister and I both spent a lot of time in our teen years working on motorcycles or my dad’s truck, as he tried to give us some good mechanical basics. It obviously stuck with my sister (she’s an electrician, working towards becoming a millwright in a sawmill in the middle of BC), but didn’t have as much of a lasting effect on me. I’m happy that Chris is a handyman and will help me out in that area when needed! As pretty as it looks on the Twist Collective models, I’m planning to get some photos of men wearing the straight ribbing version as I think this pattern can be pretty masculine or unisex too!

Hi everyone!

Summer has been delightful so far! Here’s an update on where I’m at:

My Typha shawl is about to come out in the Fall 2010 Knitscene.

I’ve got another pattern coming out soon in an online pub (you know the one…) and a third possibly getting into the following issue.

My first full garment design has been commissioned for a print mag for next year, and I’m waiting for the yarn to be delivered.

I have two garments on the needles that may become self-published at some point, along with a few hat and cowl ideas.

I’m preparing ideas to become online video lessons (a class for knitting Piper, another for the textured swatch class I taught for years, a third for the advanced vintage sewing techniques translated to knitting that I’m teaching live this fall at Vancouver’s Maiwa textile symposium.

I’m reading through Shannon Okey’s KnitGrrl guide to professional knitwear design, and preparing a review for a future podcast.

..and, our home renos are at a point where I’ve just been able to clear out a room to become my office, and my sweetie has just bought a bunch of gorgeous birch-faced plywood to turn into pretty boxes that will stack and become shelving for all of my yarn collection, in my future craft studio! Wooot!

In hooping life, I’m mid-summer festival, getting ready for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival next weekend (I volunteer in the Info Booth, and am organizing a bunch of hoopers and jugglers to perform/teach in the Little Folks area) and also planning workshops for the fall.

.. and life is good!

How are you? What’s happening in your life that should be shared and celebrated?

Wow, so much has happened since my last post!

January - I was hit by a kidney infection, and didn’t give myself nearly enough recovery time once I knew what it was (”I FEEL better, so the drugs must be working, so I can go back to work, right?”).. so it hung on for the better part of January and into February. This made renovations really tough - have you ever tried to stay in bed while your partner works day and night to get the house in shape for guests.. after you thought it would be a good idea to tear the bathroom out down to bare studs and floor joists just one month previous? Hard. Hard hard hard. Poor C, he worked his hands raw retiling the last week, and then pulled an all-nighter right before Lolly and Kris arrived, making sure that we actually had a sink and toilet in place, and that the new tiles were grouted and caulked. I was feeling better by that point, but still gave myself 3 hours of sleep that night so I wouldn’t be a miserable zombie greeting them at the door!

Sooo.. that puts us in mid-February: Lolly and Kris are with us (and they’re AWESOME, so it was a great two weeks of getting to know them and hang out and compare notes), the Olympics are in full swing, I’m feeling better, and C is ready to NOT work on the house… so we had a good time wandering the city, checking out some of the Olympic events, going out with friends again, and just relaxing at home watching the Games. Did you know that those old rabbit ear antennea work for picking up digital airwaves? CTV was broadcasting in High Def, and we could pick it up for free (no cable subscription in this household)!

March felt like a gradual return to normal, though Vancouver itself was abnormal: We’ve had spring since early February (you might have heard of our problems keeping the snow around for the ski hills), and there was a post-party slump going on - sad to see that most of the special events and pavillions that were here for the Olympics were in total take-down mode as the Paralympians were coming to town. After being off from waterpolo for the better part of three months, I returned to practices and slowly started regaining my cardio conditioning, to the point where I now don’t feel like I’m having a heart attack after three minutes of passing the ball! I’m not quite up to full speed yet, but I can do the whole 1.5 hour practice without having to take a break (though I’m still quite happy to sub out during our scrimmages).

April has been delightful! The weather is hit-or-miss, so I’ve been scoping out some decent rain pants for cycling, while also knitting up more strapless tops for summer, and I’m currently in the middle of a summer cardigan knit with DK weight wool. We’re returning to some home-care action, and having visitors last weekend had us put in a decent amount of cleaning effort that looks so much nicer as sunshine streams in through the windows!

Design-wise, this has been an exciting time: I participated in the Ravelympics, and published a hat called Whipped Lolly (see the photo above) to win gold in the Designer Biathlon; I’ve had two requests for hat designs to go into books (woo!); a shawl that I had started for myself turned out to be just the thing that a magazine needed for their Fall issue; and I’ve just heard that another hat design has been accepted to an online publication, hooray! In self-publishing land, the strapless top and the cardigan I’m working on now are both potential patterns - I need to practice scaling the designs into a wide range of sizes, and then get them out to a bunch of test knitters so the patterns themselves will be safe to share!

Knitting classes are going well, hooping classes are picking up, my fall workshop for Maiwa is tickling the back of my brain, and online lessons are percolating, too! All in all, I’m having a lovely spring!

How’s yours?