I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

Two weeks ago, I opened the comments up for questions about the book, Casual, Elegant Knits.  You all left wonderful, interesting questions.  And, now, the authors, Dawn Leeseman and Faina Goberstein have responded!  I’d like to thank them for providing really comprehensive answers and for bringing their blog tour to chez IKAFAIC.

If you want to know who won a copy of the book, you have to wait ’til the end of this post. 

Jeannie asked: How many patterns did you have to leave out of the book?  The scarves on the cover look interesting.

Dawn: Great question! We always seem to have more ideas for patterns than the time to knit them. For our book proposal we had ideas and sketches for an additional chapter, this needed to be cut due to space limitations. However, in the process of writing the book we did ask and were granted permission to add a couple of more small projects.

Annalea asked: What are Fiana’s & Dawn’s favorite knitting books? By “knitting book”, I mean a resource for interesting and new techniques, or stitch patterns, or information on how to construct knitted garments.

Dawn: I have a few resource books that I cannot live without:
Vogue Knitting
Knitter’s Handbook by Montse Stanley
The Complete Book of Knitting-Viking Press (out of print)
I also use collect vintage knitting books and patterns. I sit and go through these for inspiration and to find stitch patterns.
Fiana: I have many of my old Russian books that I reference. I also have probably 6-8 books of stitch patterns including A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker and Beautiful Knitting Patterns by Gisela Klöpper.

Tanya asked:  I am a self taught knitter who keeps learning everything I can so my Q is for either one of you . . . how long were you knitting before you felt comfortable enough to branch off and seriously start designing on your own? How did you go about it? Thanks.

Dawn: I had been knitting for 20 years before I started learning to design in exchange for payment. I had had been looking on line for ways to take my knitting to the next level. I would search for contract knitting, contract knit designers, etc. I found a small company that wanted to have new designs for their own line of patterns. I learned a lot from this experience about writing a pattern that the reader could understand as well as learning a lot about sizing and grading patterns. I continued to pursue other outlets for my designs. First there were submissions to books as well as magazine calls for designs. In 2004 I started designing for Crystal Palace Yarns and continue doing freelance work for them.

Audrey asked: As a child I dreaded wearing my mother’s knitting projects, so it’s a wonder I’ve come to find knitting so addictive myself. Another lover of that skirt, and also the driver’s cap: my question is this – What elements make a timeless classic?

Dawn: I consider myself a knitting addict too!! The good thing about being addicted to knitting is that “it does no harm”; with that thought in mind I think of it as highly therapeutic. To answer your question about what makes a timeless classic?
I think that when you look back in the fashion world, old movies are a great place to see this. You will see that some designs have silhouettes that look flattering no matter what era they are in. With a few modifications such as length, ease and a few distinctive details, you will see that the designs are brought into the present. I think timeless designs use basic somewhat impersonal colors, they do not have a lot of frills; and they look good on most people. The accessories are used to bring color and a bit of zing to the outfit.

Becky asked: I’m intrigued by the title of the book: elegant and casual. It seems like the colors are more of a European bent. What was your approach to the colors and the two aspects of elegance and casual style? I love the patterns.

Dawn: We chose the colors of the City Life Collection first, and used the timeless colors of Black, Grey and Red. These colors coordinate well and look good on men and women alike. They are basic and can be worn by most and look great in any setting. We also chose materials from yarn companies that have a great range of colors so that the knitter may personalize their own colors. The second collection we wanted to have a bit more free flowing in style as well as color. There are more drapes to the skirt and the shawl has a special finishing that adds to the fluidity. The sweater for the man has a comfortable fit, yet does not look oversized as many knitted men’s sweaters do. Even though we chose colors that we really like, once again we chose yarns from companies that have a large color selection. We chose styling of the garments that would easily go from one setting to the next. Casual yet elegant allows the wearer to be comfortable and not out of place not matter where the day takes them.

Deepa asked: I like the beret! My question is: How do two people collaborate on a book like this- do you pass ideas back and forth or pick your specialties to focus on? I’d love to know more about the process.

Dawn: Faina and I work together at a yarn shop, we both teach knitting and are always trying out something new. While we like many of the same things in our basic fashion sense, we do each have our specialties. We do ask each other’s opinions. Faina loves to make sweaters, skirts, hats, scarves, and gloves. I love to make sweaters, shawls, purses and felted bags. While both of us are comfortable with knitting most projects, we each went with the ideas that we were each passionate about. For this book there were a few projects that we had worked up prior to our book. If one of us had a finished project, we would brain storm and come up with an idea to help build a complete outfit. For example, I had the watercolor shawl, the Scalloped Edge Purse and the Golden Duet Tank, and Faina had the skirt. At first we did not think of these as going together, but when we put them together we saw that they became an outfit. We did need to make a few minor changes to materials used as some were to be discontinued by the manufacturers by the time the book went to print.

Harper asked: I’ve always wondered; do you knit the samples shown in the books or are they knitted by a variety of people? If a variety, how do you maintain a unified look?

Dawn: We have been asked the question many times and even asked if some of the designs were machine knit. Everything in the book was knit by us. Since many of these projects were written specifically for this book, it would have been impossible for us to have someone else do the knitting. Some details just have to be worked out as you go along and see how it is working up. We were able to consult with each other as we went along to make sure that we were achieving the overall desired results.

Kate/Massachusetts asked: Love the clever cast on for the hat! I would like to know where Faina and Dawn find such clever techniques? Also, what are their favorite yarns to use? And, do they have “fall-back” designs that they use over and over? We all have favorite patterns that we resort to because they are classic, fit well and work with different yarns! How do you determine what is a beginner vs and intermediate knitter skill status? How did you get started designing and getting published?

Dawn:I have a lot of books that I use for my work, most of the time I come up with an idea and then search the books to see how I can make it work.  I approach all of my designs from a fresh starting point. I do not find myself using the same designs over and over. I love novelties yarns, I seem to be seduced by a bit of sparkle and also love the color changes of the hand paint. I like to think of ways that show the elements of the yarn off without being too trendy, as I do like to keep what I knit for a long time but do not want to be out of style. Our book has a section of Useful Information on page 24 where there are explanations for the different skill levels. Most of our patterns are Easy to Intermediate. We feel that many knitters who have been knitting at the Easy level will be able to advance their skills by trying out a technique in the intermediate patterns. We have a great techniques section that will help the knitter.

Faina: I want to address the Decorative Cast-On question. I used it when I lived in Russia and I love it. It suited my idea of two hats in the book. When you are ready to make the hat, go to my blog, you will find the video for it.

If you want to read more about the book, you can see the full blog book tour schedule on Faina’s blog.  Tomorrow they’ll be visiting with Marnie MacLean.

And now . . . the winner (thanks to random.org) of the book . . . is . . .

Cayli

Congrats!  And thanks again to Dawn and Faina!

What did I do during my unexpected vacation? The first day or two, I watched a lot of TV. Really. Probably more TV than I usually watch in a year. The next few I still couldn’t drive but I felt well enough to move around a bit without throwing up. So, . . . . .

I crocheted (!) a string bag:

I finished knitting a shawl that I recently designed (pattern soon):

I swatched for another new shawl design:

I knit a felted bag, which still needs straps:

I started a sweater:

I started another sweater:

I read a book:

I read another book:

When I felt considerably better, I spun some amazing silk that Laurie sent me:

Oh, and Paula, I watched my tomatoes, get bigger:

After that, I was exhausted so I marked all my Bloglines feeds as “read.”

Ahhh, so many feeds . . . so little time.

Believe it or not, next week will mark the four-year anniversary of this blog and about one year since I moved it to this domain.

Time flies, huh.

I started the blog as a way to connect with other knitters and in that respect it’s been successful beyond my wildest dreams. Over the course of the last four years, blogging has enabled me to create and administer a 3,000-member Yahoo group; design patterns that have been published in books, by yarn companies, and in ezines; and help coordinate a knit-blogger campaign that resulted in the donation of more than $100,000 to the people affected by Hurricane Katrina. But, more importantly, the blog has facilitated my communication with hundreds of amazing knitters. I’ve even been fortunate enough to meet (in the flesh) many of the fantastic people who I met through blogging.

I rarely discuss my personal life on the blog, mainly because it’s not nearly as interesting as my knitting (which you may or may not find interesting either). For those of you who have asked over the years for some non-knitting tidbits about me, I’m a 40-something lawyer, married with 2 teenagers, and now living in Utah. I spent my childhood in Massachusetts then lived briefly in New York and even more fleetingly in Texas.
See, not very exciting.
I posted a 100 Things About Me list back in 2004 when it was all the rage. If you’re still curious, you can read it here. It’s pretty much still all true.

I readily confess to being an exceedingly pragmatic (and, some might say, dour) person. The blogiversary and recent events in my personal life got me thinking seriously about things like family, friends, memory, commitment, and opportunity lost but happily found again. That introspective generated a mental list of many practical reasons why I should walk away from the blog and call it good. Things like the nasty, snarky emails I get from readers on a weekly basis (don’t believe me? ask Margene), or the difficulty of trying to fit the blogging into all the other activities and commitments competing for my time. While I receive many wonderful comments on my posts, I regret that there aren’t enough hours in my day to enable me to personally respond to every one. So, as the blog became more popular, it also became a bit of a Catch-22. I love the opportunity to connect with more knitters but the more knitters with whom I connect, the less time I have to knit and blog. *sigh*

But, after dwelling for a while on all the negatives, I turned my focus to all the unbelievably wonderful things that naturally flow from maintaining the blog. The sense of community and the overwhelmingly positive tone of the messages and comments I receive from readers. I truly adore getting emails telling me that something I posted was helpful to someone.

On balance, I’ve decided the positive far outweighs the negative. So, you’re not getting rid of me yet but I have decided that I’ll be posting less often, probably no more than once a week and maybe less than that.

But enough sentiment, let’s get back to the event that inspired this post in the first place–the blogiversary.

And what’s a blogiversay without a contest?

I think the best way to celebrate the last four years is by having not one contest, but two!

Here’s the skinny on the first:
Leave me a comment between now and Sunday night, suggesting a theme for the contest I intend to hold next week to celebrate the blogiversay. If I use your idea, you win this:

A Ceilidh Lace Socks Kit (yarn and pattern) from Wooly Wonka Fibers in the colorway of your choice (it’s shown here in the Nantucket colorway but you can choose from the other colorways on the website).

C’mon, help me out here. After four years, I’m outta ideas.