I'm a Featured Designer!

My bio just went up on AllFreeCrochetAfghanPatterns.com. This site has a great collection of crocheted blanket patterns to choose from, and my Circle Lap-ghan is one of 'em. I'm currently working on a new pattern, so keep an eye out. I'll post it here, and I'm sure it will be over there, too.

Erin's Interview, Part 2

The Designer of the Month for January is yarn designer and spinner, Erin Jepson. This is the second part of her interview. You can see the first part here.

What is your favorite color / texture combination?
My favorite color combo is a heartbreaking collection of autumnal oranges, browns, and reds with a hint of teal or turquoise thrown in for good measure. Actually, any surprising combination makes my heart beat faster. I love it when a color shows through just enough to make you fall in love with it but not so much that you grow tired of it. Uniformity isn’t what I’m after in a yarn project--surprise is more like it.

As far as a favorite texture combination, I’m not sure I can put my finger on just one. When I’m plying a yarn against itself, I prefer the clean lines you get from a super wash wool (merino, BFL, and corriedale are my favorite super wash options). However, if I’m spinning up a super bulky yarn to be left as singles or plied with thread, I think more texture is best. I love locks of wool spun into an otherwise smooth yarn. When knit up, those locks of wool are little pockets of love that the spinner has left there for the knitter.

Do you have a type of project that you lean towards for knitted or crocheted examples of your yarn? Do you prefer knit or crochet for your yarn?
Because my yarn has a tendency to have short repeats of colors, I prefer items like hats, mittens, wrist warmers, neck warmers, or scarves to show off the rows of colors. I’ve never used my yarn, or had a customer who has used my yarn, for shawls or sweaters, so I’d be interested to see how that would turn out. I love my yarn no matter how it’s used… knitting, crocheting, weaving, sitting in a bowl to look pretty… it’s all a good ending for my yarn.

Erin's yarn made up in Tied Up and Twisted (free pattern).
How do you conceptualize your designs?
It’s all in my head… for the most part. I often name my yarns based on images from my memory before dyeing up the fiber to spin them with. I’ve found that a catchy name is just as important as a gorgeous yarn. So if I can come up with a winning name and yarn to match, I’ve got a great item to sell or gift. However, I have been known to be inspired by a great picture. One of my best-selling dyed tops was based on a photograph I saw online. While each project comes out different, I’ll always remember that picture as inspiration.

Where do you do your best design work?
I do my best design work in nature. If colors and texture naturally go together in real life, then they work for yarn as well. A walk through the woods or drive through the mountains almost always results in a new yarn creation.

Who or what was your earliest inspiration that started you on your way to being the designer you are today?
You know, there wasn’t a “who” that dropped me into this crazy world of yarn. However, my mom was always so supportive of any creative and crafty endeavor that I embarked on. She was always the one who pushed me to begin selling jewelry on Etsy. Without that experience on Etsy, I might never have found the handspun yarn that led me to the creative outlet I have today. So I suppose it was my mom… and all of the wonderful enablers out in the yarn world spinning up beautiful yarns and dyeing up beautiful fibers to play with.

Do you have any advice for spinners who are new to designing yarn?
Don’t be afraid of fiber. Play with it, spin it up, do crazy things, go wild and have fun. Know that even experienced spinners have frustrating days behind the wheel. While a lot of spinning is touch and feel, I firmly believe that some wheels can have minds of their own and will play games with you. Also, some colors just never look good together unspun, but spun up, they play with each other and dance across your knitting needles so don’t lose hope when you’re gifted a less than beautiful pile of wool. Spin it before you cast it off. And lastly, ugly yarn can always be used to tie up your tomato plants in the summer, and ugly wool still has life as a natural doll or pillow fill. Ask me how I know...


Here are more of my favorite yarns by Erin:

Telltale Heart

Bookworm

Twilight Wakes











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You can keep up with Erin by visiting her blog, http://knittinghands.blogspot.com.
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Designer of the Month: Erin Jepson

This month, we're having a change of pace--instead of a pattern designer, I wanted to feature a yarn designer. As lovers of yarn, I think knitters and crocheters owe a lot to those marvelous artists who design and create our medium.

Erin Jepson
First, let me say that the photos in this post don't do Erin's yarns justice. When you see them for real, you want to grab them all up and eat 'em... or maybe knit them... or crochet. Erin is a brilliant young woman who, in addition to having a degree in music performance, rubs elbows with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma and Manheim Steamroller as a matter of, oh, just doing her job at Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. That, coupled with living in one of the most beautiful spots in the country, she is a yarn-lover's dream come true. Her color and texture combinations go from darkly brooding to sweetness and light and back again in a matter of a few yards of plied, yummy yarn.

You can buy her yarn to have as your very own, from her Etsy store, Wooly Hands.

Here are some of my favorite yarns by Erin:

Rotten Fruits

Dark Crystal

Night Hike











Erin has kindly answered some interview questions for us, and she did such a great job of it, that I'm going to publish them in two parts. On the second Monday of this month, Part 2 will be posted. Here's the first:

How did you get started designing yarn?
In a nutshell, I basically fell into it. Although, you all are smart enough to know that isn’t entirely true. No one really falls into a hobby like this. It’s not like I was walking through the mall and said, “Oh look, a spinning wheel and sheep.” I’ll expand a bit… knitting with commercially spun yarns started to wear on me and I found myself scouring the Internet for gorgeous, handspun yarns. The LYS near me doesn’t carry a good selection of handspun yarns. What they do have is natural (brown… tan… more brown) or dyed after being spun and I prefer dyed before spinning and yarns with loads of color. Etsy.com provided me with a plethora of shops all dyeing and selling the most tempting and gorgeous yarns I have ever laid eyes on.

It didn’t take many months of buying yarn before the obvious next step presented itself. Why wasn’t I spinning my own yarns? Thankfully I surround myself with tons of supportive people and over the course of a Christmas, I found myself with a drop spindle and some wool. That led to my first spinning wheel 9 months later, then my 2nd and 3rd spinning wheels, a drum carder, boxes upon boxes of dyes. and fleeces upon fleeces of wool. Basically, I don’t do things small. I go all out. Spinning and designing yarns is just another example of that. Ask me about the time I was going to sell Mary Kay cosmetics and thought I would need $4,000 of product to get started. Yeah, I’m that person.

What is your yarn weight preference?
I prefer worsted weight yarns because most of my favorite handspun knitting projects are small, like mittens and hats. Worsted weight is perfect for things like that. However, those who own one of my scarves or neck warmers know I’m also a huge fan of bulky yarns. There is an element of surprise in a neck warmer knit from a super bulky, thread plied yarn. No two rows are the same. Now that I’ve said I prefer worsted and bulky, I’d like to add that I don’t necessarily like those better than the others--they are just what I enjoy spinning and using. If I were to knit up a lacy shawl, I’m sure I’d prefer some laceweight yarn. Ask me this question again in February and I’ll bet that my answer will be different.

What’s your favorite fiber to work with?
When it comes to wool, I adore BFL (Blue Faced Leicester), which will beat out any natural (I’m leaving out super wash wools for this answer) wool in my wool popularity contest. It’s sleek, easy to spin, and has a natural luster that the other wools don’t have. My favorite non-wool fiber is angelina. I have 2 drawers full of the sparkly stuff in plastic and metallic materials. I love the way the sparkle of the angelina plays against the matte finish of wool in a finished yarn.

What is your weapon of choice?
While I did start out with a drop spindle, I quickly moved to a wheel. I’m not an overly patient person, and if takes me more than one day to spin a yarn I’ll lose interest. Spinning wheels allow me the speed to finish a yarn in one sitting but also the flexibility to create some really amazing yarns. I currently use my Lendrum DT to spin most of the yarns I knit with and sell, but I also use a small, single treadle wheel from Heavenly Handspinning that is easy to carry from craft show to craft show.

You can find Part 2 of Erin's interview here.

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You can keep up with Erin by visiting her blog, http://knittinghands.blogspot.com.
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To participate in Designer of the Month on your blog, just fill in your info in the box below, and your link will be added. If you're a member of Ravelry, you can also post in The Blog Hub group's Designer of the Month thread so we can all read about your featured designer.

Designer of the Month: Anne Carroll Gilmour

Anne Carroll Gilmour
In addition to her famous witch hat, Anne's knit designs have a Celtic, mystical, starry-eyed feel. As a gifted and accomplished spinner and weaver, her understanding of fiber, color, and garment structure give her patterns the mark of quality that few knit designers can come close to. From Celtic knot cables to celestial motifs to lace, her work is always a joy to behold!

Here are some of my favorite patterns by Anne:

Enchanting and Magical Witch Hat

Entrelac Envelope Bag

Tempall Breachain Hat

Dancing Stars Hat











Here are Anne's answers to the Designer of the Month interview questions:

How did you get started designing patterns?
As soon as I learned to knit and crochet (I was 8) I started designing my own patterns--for me it was easier just to invent what I envisaged than to try to follow someone else’s path. The real trick for me was not learning to design, but learning to write directions for the things I designed that others could follow!

What is your design preference: knit or crochet?
I have to say knit--I learned to crochet first and I love both, but it was the more flexible nature of knit fabric for wear-ables that appealed to me and caused me to develop more in that direction. I also come from a folk knitting background, and classic textured fisherman-type knits and colourwork have always been a part of my mental and physical landscape from early on.

What is your weapon of choice?
I love wood and bamboo double-points (very traditional that way for tight circles), but I think other techniques like magic loop, et al. are great--anything that gets folks knitting! I use Addi turbo and lace circulars for everything else, whether I’m knitting flat or round, I love the tip shape of this particular brand and it’s easier on the wrists than having something hanging off the ends of straight needles (they also don’t bump your husband when he’s brave enough to sit next to you while you’re knitting!).

Are there types of stitches that you use a lot, and why?
Texture (cables, twisted sts, etc), classic colour stranding, and Entrelac are the three that jump to mind, but I love lace and other types of colourwork too--there are so many possibilities with these techniques that I seem to return to them again and again, they are old friends that always take me new places!

What is your favorite color / pattern combination?
It changes all the time. Right now I’m loving the combination of pumpkin-y goldish-orange next to beet red, but that’s probably because it’s Autumn--and spirals and knots of some form or another are always floating around in my head--I’d say it’s my Celtic background but I think it’s pretty universal... just look at prehistoric rock art and cave paintings.

What’s your favorite fiber to work with when designing?
WOOL--no surprise there, eh?

Do you have a type of project that you lean towards for pattern design, like socks, hats, sweaters, etc.?
Love ‘em all!

How do you conceptualize your designs?
They usually materialize whole-cloth in my mind as complete and detailed finished items--mostly triggered by something I see that inspires me. For instance, my ‘Fenceline’ series was born while I was gazing at a vintage barbed wire collection in a dusty little cowboy museum in Kemmerer, Wyoming--hey I bet you could make little ‘peerie’ type patterns like this, why not?-- everything I see is grist for my idea mill, it never sleeps!

Where do you do your best design work?
Wherever I am. Ideas come to me all the time. I take a little graph paper notebook with me everywhere I go.

Who or what was your earliest inspiration that started you on your way to being the designer you are today?
My Mother and my Aunt and the sweet little German lady (Nanna Tuerschen) who used to babysit all the kids in my neighbourhood, they were always making something (sewing, knitting, crocheting, etc.)--I wanted to be just like them!

Do you have any advice for knitters or crocheters who are new to designing patterns?
Do not dismiss any of your design ideas without at least giving them a shot, and build your technical skills. The best designers are always the ones who understand the techniques they are using and writing about inside and out. Believe in yourself!

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You can keep up with Anne by visiting her website, http://www.wildwestwoolies.com.
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Erssie's Interview, Part 4

This is the fourth and final installment in Erssie Major's Designer of the Month interview series. You can see the first part here, and link to the second and third parts.

Do you have any advice for knitters or crocheters who are new to designing patterns?
I would advise newbies writing patterns for the first time to try to do the following things:

1. Invest a lot of time into researching other patterns and styles available in books, magazines, and independent patterns from other designers. Look at some of the indie designers and try and decide what you love or like, what you don’t like, and what is not acceptable to you.

2. Look at the Yarn Standards website for guidelines in your style of abbreviations and try to stick to one style, with a set of standard abbreviations. Try and keep this consistent across all your patterns.

3. Cut out the personal chat in your patterns. Its nice to have a personal style, but chatting in the middle of a set of instructions is really distracting. I would advise any lengthy explanation to go into pattern notes and to keep the pattern to the bare bones of the instructions in accepted abbreviations. Too many newbies are used to writing patterns for a blog and making a lot of comments on each point. Remember, people want to save their printer ink and they may make this design more than once, so a lot of irrelevant chat is really off-putting. If it is relevant chat, then putting it into pattern notes on its own page, means a knitter can read it once if necessary but may not need to print it out.

4. Get the designs test-knitted. Getting stuff test-knitted is only helpful if you analyse the results. Try and define what it is you are testing. Some new designers hear they must test-knit, get volunteers to make the stuff, but then never review the feedback or results. This is not really useful to making your pattern accurate. If a tester comes back and says ‘everything was fine, it was all correct, and ok thanks I enjoyed it’ I would question this because it is very unusual for a pattern to be instantly perfect. There should be some criticism or one or two mistakes on a first draft.

5. In addition to test-knitting, invest in a good tech editor. They will make sure that your pattern is current, uses accepted abbreviations, is graded accurately into different sizes, and will look for every single formatting, punctuation, or typing mistake. They will also help bring better ways of expressing things, less confusion, and will help you to be consistent. Without a tech editor a pattern writer can often start to drift in style and be inconsistent. Test knitters, especially volunteers, cannot be expected to have this level of professionalism over every aspect of the pattern. Normally my tech editor is the very last person to make changes to the pattern, I approve these changes and the pattern goes live. Listen to feedback without feeling hurt or defensive. I get patterns back all the time, that have lots of red marks and criticism and I use it wisely, this is not the time to get upset and personal about it.

6. Try to be kind to customers... not that they are always right, but it does not help to get into a wrangle with the one customer who found your pattern confusing if that person goes on a forum and spreads the word as to how unhelpful you are. Customers will contact you all the time, asking for help and guidance, and not all will be appreciative.

7. Don’t expect to give up the day job anytime soon, and expect, if you want a career purely in the fiber arts, to have to teach, run an LYS, dye, spin, or have your own yarn brand in addition to designing. Unless every pattern you release goes totally viral, you are unlikely to live on pattern sales alone to begin with. What can happen if your popularity spirals after a viral pattern, is you find that offers come your way to be included in books, or even to have a solo book.

8. Talking of books, it helps to increase your kudos and for knitters to trust your patterns, if you do get a design published about once every one or two months in a well known book or magazine, or on a website, e.g. Knitty. It does not mean you have to go down that route for everything but it will help traffic come your way for independent designs if you submit to print or online publications.


Here are more of my favorite patterns by Erssie:

Christmas Pudding Baby Hat

Chukchi: Crochet Mukluks

Cafe Racer Newborn Baby Set










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You can keep up with Erssie's new designs by visiting her website, Erssie Knits.
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Erssie's Interview, Part 3

This is the third part of Erssie Major's Designer of the Month interview. You can see the first part here, and the second part here. Check back next Monday for the last part of the interview.

Do you have a type of project that you lean towards for pattern design?
I choose accessories, so make small things. This does not mean I am not capable of designing a sweater but I am very slow at knitting due to the hand disability and my hat would probably take the same time to knit as anybody else’s sweater. I love the feeling of achievement when a project is finished, and its so addictive, that it does put me off making bigger pieces. I compromise though, so for example my pagan throw, magickal blanket is being released square by square with a magical symbol on each one.

How do you conceptualize your designs?
I keep a design journal. This goes with me anywhere and any ideas however stupid or insane go into this journal. In the back I keep a running idea for books or pattern titles, but in the main pages I sketch anything that comes to mind. I also collect images in computer folders to inspire me… so I have a Pagan one, which has folders for everything in different subheadings and I have an African folder, an Egyptian folder, etc. I don’t generally put photos in my design journal, they would go into my computer folders but if I was inspired to make something along those lines, then I would sketch my interpretation of it.
I also do lots of those spider/brainstorm diagrams too… so if there is a vague theme I can examine every angle of it, and I do not always submit one idea to a client I submit a selection expecting at least one to hit home, and then am sometimes shocked and overworked when a client accepts about 5 off the list!

Where do you do your best design work?
Truthfully, in the past my best design work is never for myself and always for other people. I am trying to change that though. The thing is, I cannot keep a good idea secret and cannot help submitting it somewhere. I want to keep those ideas for myself, but I have a problem in that my design journal gets full but only about 10% of ideas ever get made… this means I have a store of ideas so if a book wants a theme on say African bold textiles and I have something in my design journal, half of me knows it could stay in there for years before I get round to it but if I submit it to a magazine or book and it gets accepted, then it gets bumped up the priority list and puts pressure on me to make it. One of my designer friends did comment objectively, and said, I would do much better if I kept the ideas I give away to myself and release my own pattern.


Here are more of my favorite patterns by Erssie:

Belladonna Sleeves

Solstice Sun Motif
Throw or Square










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You can keep up with Erssie's new designs by visiting her website, Erssie Knits.
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Erssie's Interview, Part 2

The Designer of the Month for November is Erssie Major. This is the second part of her interview. You can see the first part here and the third part here. Check back on the next two Mondays of the month for the rest of the interview.

What is your weapon of choice?
I have invested in a set of laminated wooden needles with interchangeable needle heads and cords. I also got an artisan to custom design a case for the set and this is my weapon of choice. Wood because I just get a better feel and less static from it and interchangeable because I never go on holiday or travels without a full set of needles…its easier than trying to plan which projects you might attempt when the inspiration hits. When it comes to hooks, I have a set of clover hooks with a soft pad which is essential for me as I have a hand disability. I would recommend these to anybody who has trouble gripping. It does not matter what size the hook is with these needles the flat handle is always the same which greatly helps with smaller hooks.

Are there types of stitches that you use a lot, and why?
Double Crochet UK (Single Crochet US). I use this stitch a lot through the back loops only because I love to make use of my charting and colour work skills and like the closeness and woven type texture of tapestry crochet. When it comes to knitting, I use stocking stitch a lot but with colour work motifs. I use lace the least. I find that although I can design endless colour work stitch patterns that are totally unique, when it comes to lace it is difficult to totally invent a stitch…if you try, you find that someone else has discovered that before. All you can do with lace really to be unique is to use combinations of stitches that others have used. Although I occasionally do this I prefer Fair Isle and Intarsia knitting any day to put my stamp on something.

What is your favorite color / pattern combination?
I love to see my own method of cast on, passed down in my family, against a ribbed edge of a hat in the round….it always looks so neat and proper! People often think my stuff has been machines as it looks like no other type of cast on......its a secret though!
When it comes to colour, sometimes I like the minimal shade but massive contrast e.g. Charcoal and White, or Navy and White for traditional Fair Isle of a Norwegian kind. At other times I love a riot of colours for a Day of the Dead type them, candy colours against a black background. If I am making things for me to wear, I like to choose blues and purples and occasionally a deep bright scarlet.

What’s your favorite fiber to work with when designing?
Wool. There is nothing like it. You can totally abuse it and it still washes out beautifully.
Alpaca is a close second, but loses points for its stink when it gets wet in the rain.

Part 3 of Erssie's interview is here.


Here are more of my favorite patterns by Erssie:

Dizzy Lily
(Snood for a Hound)

Little Pink Skulls
Newborn Baby Set









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You can keep up with Erssie's new designs by visiting her website, Erssie Knits.
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Designer of the Month: Erssie Major!

Tomorrow is Dia de los Muertos, and what better time could there be to feature Erssie Major as Designer of the Month? Based in the UK, Erssie is a well-known knit and crochet designer, whose work often includes skeletons and skulls. Some of her patterns were created to celebrate the Day of the Dead.  (see below)

Erssie Major
Erssie's designs are sometimes goth and sometimes folkloric--all with her unmistakeable style. She has a way with color and pattern that only an artist could accomplish. She designs knit patterns, and has recently added crochet patterns to her site.  And if that weren't enough, she is prolific in her creation of marvelously designed stitch charts, which can be found here.

Here are some Dia de los Muertos patterns by Erssie:

Las Calacas Danzantes
(The Dancing Skeletons)

Calavera
(Skull Chart)

Los Pequeños Relojes de Arena
(The Little Hourglasses)

The Samhain Collection:
Skull & Ghost Charts E-book










Erssie has kindly answered some interview questions for us, and she did such a great job of it, that I'm going to publish them as a series. Every Monday this month, there will be another installment. Here's the first:

How did you get started designing patterns?
I started making my own toys and clothes for my action figure doll (a boy’s one) when I was very young. I was the only kid to have an action figure soldier that had a crochet dressing gown, felt slippers and duvet for his camp bed.

What is your design preference: knit or crochet?
I don’t actually have a preference for knit or crochet and really I don’t like to limit crafts by dividing them into technique categories because I think it limits the design. I feel the same way about categorizing within knit or crochet, e.g. lace v. colour work, texture v. smooth, etc. I prefer to just use whatever is needed to make the piece work at that point.
I understand though that it is necessary in pattern designing to divide the craft because that is what the customers expect and not everybody has a range of textiles techniques. However, when I am given a free rein I just like to use the technique that best suits my purpose. For example, if I want a fabric with fantastic drape and a smooth surface I pick up the needles, but if I was working on a sculptural piece that needed to be freeform or have shape in any dimension, then I would pick up the hook. I am happy to mix my media and flit between the two.

Who or what was your earliest inspiration that started you on your way to being the designer you are today?
The grandmother I never met, was an inspiration to me. My mother could knit well but she used to tell me stories of how my grandmother was good but also really speedy. She grew up in a kids home in the early 1900’s and being the eldest girl in a family of 13 kids (my great granny had 16 kids but 3 died) she was allotted the family knitting in the home. Often she had ridiculous deadlines and she learned to knit, in the dark, under the bedclothes at night. The punishment for not completing was to be locked in a dark cupboard with no light visible, and creepy crawlies, and her closest friend there died of heart failure whilst on one of these punishments. When I think of some of the setbacks I have, I just think of her, and I wonder how on earth she still managed to enjoy knitting for the whole of her life.

Part 2 of Erssie's interview is here.

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You can keep up with Erssie's new designs by visiting her website, Erssie Knits.
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Designer of the Month: Sasha Evans

I’m starting a new monthly feature on this blog, called: Designer of the Month. I’ll feature one of my favorite knitting or crochet pattern designers every month. Here’s the first designer.

Sasha Evans
Sasha’s knitted designs are just gorgeous. She is a natural with texture, color, and overall lines of a finished object. A few years after learning to knit, this young woman produced her first for-sale pattern, Bluebonnets, which was lace--but it wasn’t just lace, it was an image of a bluebonnet flower that she worked out and incorporated into a knitted headband. Then on to stranded-color stitch creation for the edges of Ceres, a hat-and-mitts set.

Here are some of my favorite patterns by Sasha:

Ceres










Bluebonnets










Tied Up and Twisted










Hot Water Bottle Cozy











Here are her answers to your burning questions:

How did you get started designing patterns?
Hot Water Bottle Cozy was my first pattern, and basically I had this yarn, it wanted to be a bottle cozy, and there weren't any patterns that it would work in without a bunch of gauge-related tweaking anyway. So I said, "eff this, it's just rectangles, how hard can it be?" Turns out it really wasn't that hard, so I kept going--got hooked on being able to knit things that were *exactly* what I wanted, was writing them down for my own future reference anyway, and boom--I'm designing patterns.

What is your design preference: knit or crochet?
I prefer knitting to crochet because, unlike crocheting, I know how to knit.

What is your weapon of choice?
I usually wind up using circs with a nice, long cord because once you know magic loop, you can really knit anything on them. They're versatile, and so I tend to buy those. That said, from an experiential point of view, and not a practical point of view, I really enjoy knitting with wooden DPNs. They just feel nicer.

Are there types of stitches that you use a lot, and why?
Cables. They're cozy, and you can be really creative with them. I've found that, as a designer, I'm much more interested in playing with patterns and textures than I am with colors. I enjoy seeing the ways that color and texture affect each other--how a lighter color will make cables stand out, how the texture of a pattern will create subtle shading and variations in a single colorway.

What is your favorite color / pattern combination?
Um.....I like Ceres?

What’s your favorite fiber to work with when designing?
I like natural fibers, and I tend to be attracted to alpaca.

Do you have a type of project that you lean towards for pattern design?
Not really, although projects smaller than sweaters are just statistically more likely to ever be finished. And I just can't seem to drum up much interest inside of me for socks. *shrug*

How do you conceptualize your designs?
I have a small sketchbook that I carry around with me.

Where do you do your best design work?
I guess at home. I know not everyone feels this way at home, but I can both relax and shut myself off from distractions most easily when I'm at home.

Who or what was your earliest inspiration that started you on your way to being the designer you are today?
Well, my mother taught me how to knit, so that's a big one. I think Jane Brocket put a sort of aesthetic and "you can do it!" bug in me shortly before I started designing. She also turned me on to hot water bottles.

Do you have any advice for knitters or crocheters who are new to designing patterns?
Start with something simple and rectangular, like a bottle cozy or a cool scarf, and then figure out more complex shaping from there as you go. And don't stop knitting other people's patterns just because you can do it all yourself! Knitting other people's stuff is how we learn to do new things.

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You can keep tabs on what Sasha is up to by visiting her blog, Sasha’s Blue Carpet, which is a fun-to-read romp through crafting, cooking, feminism, and other interesting stuff.