Knitting and Crochet Blog Week: Your Knitting Hero 3KCBWDAY3
Today’s topic requests that I blog about someone in the fiber arts who really inspires me. I knew right away that I’d want to talk about one of the designers I admire–after all, looking at them is what made me think, “Hey, I might be able to do this design thing!” in the first place.
But who to choose? There are so many talented and awesome designers out there right now, and thanks to Ravelry, I can stalk follow their every designing move. I especially love Ysolda Teague’s modern and simple style, Marnie MacLean’s romantic, textural designs and willingness to help upcoming designers, and Romy Hill’s beautiful shawls (if I actually, you know, KNIT shawls, I’d be all over that).
But the designer I decided to focus on today is Wendy Bernard, who blogs at knitandtonic.net. She designs modern, figure-flattering garments that pretty much always appeal to me. And although she lives in southern California too, she doesn’t shy away from my beloved wool!
A look through my Ravelry projects tells me she was a good choice (these are all projects from before I started designing, of course).
Here’s Jordan (all pattern links go to Ravelry pages):
A striped Tomato in-progress (I did finish it, promise, but for some reason never got pics!):
Look at my short blond hair–yikes!
I’ve also made Sizzle, which was gifted to a friend before pictures could be taken, and Something Red, which turned out a little too small (totally user error) and then had to be frogged to make something else due to lack of yarn.
Now, five FOs from the same designer may not sound like much, but that’s BY FAR the most I’ve knit of anyone’s patterns in my almost 10 years of knitting. And even though I can’t really justify knitting anything that isn’t my own design right now, I still am dying to make these sweaters from Wendy’s wonderful Custom Knits book:
Also Opulent Raglan, which I actually BOUGHT YARN FOR right before I started designing and then ended up destashing so it would stop taunting me.
I haven’t bought Custom Knits 2, because I have a feeling I’ll fall in love with sweaters in there too and it’ll just make me sad. But I will continue to admire Wendy’s design aesthetic and prolific output (Custom Knits: Accessories comes out next week!). I will also continue reading her blog, where she shares interesting and often moving stories about the business of designing, knitting, and life in general.
So thank you, Wendy, for being such an inspiration to this newbie designer :-)
I’ve heard so much about her book. After reading your post, I think I need to pick it up.