kate for YOTH

// A little peek inside the collaboration between YOTH and their current featured designer. We chat with the talented makers, get to know them better, and discover how their collab came to be.  //

Tell us a bit about yourself & share one thing that may surprise us about you.
I'm a mom of 4 boys and I started designing while I was working on a (totally unrelated) PhD. I did go on to finish my degree but by then I was enjoying designing so much (and the flexibility to be with my kids) that I ended up going to that full time. I started out designing easy hats for babies and kids but quickly moved on to more complex garments and pieces for all ages. I have been at it for almost 9 years now. I live in the South where the yarn shops are a bit more spread out, but I love traveling to meet up with knitters and friends at various shows or to teach. Fun fact: when I was in 8th grade, I lived in the midwest and wrestled on the boys wrestling team for a season :)

What do you love about knitwear design?
I love the creativity but I also love the MATH. Yup, I am a total math nerd. Grading is like puzzle for me and I love the satisfaction of getting a wide range of sizes figured out even in more complex designs.

How would you describe your new pattern, the Kate sweater, that you designed for us?
I would describe it as intriguingly flattering and wearable on so many body types. It was one of the most challenging designs I've created to date and I think it is much easier to knit than it was to do all that math, I am so proud of how it came out!

How did you approach this design? And, what was difficult to tackle with this project?
Veronika gave me a couple of guidelines and I remember her saying something like "you know, do a complex raglan, do what you're good at" and then I went to google complex raglan because I was not familiar with that term. Ha! Turns out it is indeed something I have done all along I just didn't realize there was a term for it. I really wanted to have a few different stitch patterns going on so I created a huge swatch to experiment before settling on how I wanted to do it. I knit the first few inches of the sweater several times because I kept changing my mind on where I wanted the pieces to go and how the ribbing would bleed into the cables. The most challenging aspect was trying to figure out how to actually write out the pattern. Normally that part is easy for me but this design is a little extraordinary and did not fit neatly into my standard template.

Any tips?
Read ahead but don't overthink it! All standard knitting rules apply! There are some rounds where you just might have to follow along very closely and trust that it is going to turn out alright.