Blog

I love the stories behind names - whether it’s a new baby, a novel-in-progress or a knitting pattern, I’m always down with hearing what went into the choice.It’s not easy, coming up with creative, catchy and memorable names for 12-14 patterns a year. There’s always a moment in the design process (usually the ‘miles of stockinette’ or ‘make second sleeve’ section) when I look down at the project in my hands and think “What am I going to call this?”My first drafts are usually not terribly good. La Peregrina was called Lacy Heart Thing for awhile. Dorsett had several names,...

Here’s my Prezi for the Unravelling Ravelry workshop I offered at Espace Tricot on January 14th: https://prezi.com/view/zPSmL0KIqUULiBDy6eno/The above presentation was part of a two-hour workshop I taught, mainly with the aim of introducing users to the powerful search functions available on Ravelry. The presentation alone may not have enough context to really get the whole gist, but it does have some exercises in it that will get anyone going on using the tools. What really struck me when assembling this was how much you as a user can control what comes back to you as a feed. By investing some...

I've had a few messages from knitters working on my Four Score sweater asking for techniques for tightening up that annoying column of loose purl stitches that often appear right after your column of knit stitches. Rather than try to type this all up I made a quick little video. I hope this helps! <br/>Two ways to tighten up loose purl stitches in ribbing. Please excuse the state of my hands - it's been a long, dry winter here in Montreal.

I was a teaching a knitting class last month and while we were working away on some short rows, one of the women in class asked me what inspires my designs. Truthfully, when I started submitting designs to magazines years ago, I was trying to come up with things I hadn't seen before. I thought that was my only way into the market. The results were... interesting, but lacked universal appeal. I'm still proud of those designs, but not many people opted to knit them.Now, I tend to approach design from a problem solving point of view - as much...