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Nicky and I had a wonderful chat with Paul Haesemeyer, theater costumer and knitwear designer from Canada. We talked about how being a knitter influences his theater work and vice versa.

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Transcript

Podcast Introduction

00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to Craft, Design, Edit, Sleep, Repeat with hosts Lisa Conway and Nikki Jensen. Listen, as we take a deep dive into the business of fibercraft design.
00:00:38
Speaker
OK, good morning, good afternoon. Welcome.

Paul Haysmeyer's Journey into Design

00:00:43
Speaker
I have with me today Nikki, as usual, now. Thank you, Nikki. Hello. I'm so happy to have you with us on a regular basis. And I have Paul Haysmeyer. Paul is one of Nikki's wonderful, regular clients. And he's got a very unique background that I'm really looking forward to digging into.
00:01:08
Speaker
So let's get started. Paul, I know you started in costume designing, correct? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. OK, so tell us, how did you get into designing? And then as it progressed, how did you transfer from costume designing to knitwear designing, or do you still do both? Yeah, totally.
00:01:34
Speaker
I immediately thought of back in my freshman year of undergrad, we had to write a paper for class that was the toys that define us. And I realized then that I've kind of always loved design, costume design, fashion design, making clothing.

Early Inspirations and Knitting Beginnings

00:01:52
Speaker
Because I remembered, wait, I was making tissue paper gowns for my Hallmark beanie babies and my Build a Bear and
00:02:02
Speaker
When I first started knitting, my mom designed a pattern for a sweater for my build-a-bear, so she knit part of it. I finished it back and forth, and that's how we learned. So I feel like I've almost always loved clothing design in particular and exploring that. As I got older, junior high is doing a lot of sketching, drawing, and I'm like, oh, I love this whimsical playing with
00:02:30
Speaker
with costumes in particular where it asks classmates saying, hey, give me a prompt. And they give me a random prompt. I'm like, great. Whipped out a sketch online paper. And I have a whole folder back home at my parents' house just full of sketches. And I just forget how many I have of them. So that's really fun to look at those later. So really like from a young age, I kind of always knew I wanted to do design, do creative stuff. Grew up watching a lot of movies, Disney, et cetera. And I loved character design.

Costume Design as a Career

00:03:00
Speaker
And as I got older and with some teachers who saw me, they're like, hey, would you be interested in costume design? I'm like, why? Yes, I didn't know this was a career path. And it really didn't click as this is a real career until I was an undergrad. Met up with my costume designer professor, Professor Andrea Baer at Wabash College. And she and I are still best friends. We chat nearly every day. And it's been really fun just seeing where they intersect.
00:03:31
Speaker
with knitting and I always love, like, if I'm designing for a show, like, okay, which character is the knitter? How do I explore this? What are my tells for this character? Because as a costume designer, I am required to almost to know the characters better than the actors or even the directors because it's because wearing a garment is something so natural, without that quote unquote, but it's usually done subconsciously. So it it's interesting how much thought it takes, but
00:04:00
Speaker
In this world, we think clothing is less work. It's, quote unquote, women's work. So it's not respected nearly as much as other departments. And thankfully, costume design industry is working on that. Yay. And currently, I am working as a costumer at Alabama Shakespeare Festival as a stitcher. I'm not a designer at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, but I help make the costume. So the costume designer will come in
00:04:28
Speaker
give our team the designs. I have a supervisor who makes the patterns and cuts them out. And then they throw the pieces at me. I put them together and they get to see them on stage in the end. So I have a lot of fun both full time in that position. And then knitwear wise, I take a lot of those skills and apply them to my knitwear in terms of these are the shapes I'm working with every day. How do I apply them to knitwear?
00:04:55
Speaker
a lot of my designs incorporate a lot of seams because I love a good seam because they last forever. It's stable. It makes it more of an heirloom knit.

Transition from Costume to Knitwear Design

00:05:05
Speaker
And my brain just thinks in terms of geometry a lot of the times, it sure as Nicky has seen in my pattern writing where it's like, here's the shapes I need. How do the ends justify my means? So yeah, that's kind of how my knitwear design is influenced by costume design and vice versa.
00:05:23
Speaker
I love to keep doing costume design as I keep moving forward. We're just going to see what happens. We're taking it one day at a time.

Knitwear in Television

00:05:31
Speaker
That's great. So you're still doing both. And really, they've integrated from the very beginning. 100%. 100%.
00:05:39
Speaker
Gotcha. Okay, that's really cool because there's really a lot of crossover. I mean, look at how many of the big popular TV shows, for example,
00:05:54
Speaker
You can spot the knits throughout, you know, I'm thinking Outlander. I'm thinking Harry Potter. I'm thinking the other one I was, oh, Gilmore Girls. Oh yeah.
00:06:15
Speaker
And it was very subtle in the Gilmore Girls, where in the other two it's kind of a little bit more in your face, right? But Gilmore Girls, you could spot those knits and just like, oh yeah, that costumer did such a great job of matching that knit to that character.
00:06:37
Speaker
Right? I did not watch Gilmore Girls until way after it was off the air. But I watched it and it was so fun to watch the clothing.
00:06:52
Speaker
because I came at it from the designer, from the tech editor point of view of, oh yeah, that's really cool. So yeah, that's really neat that it crosses over. Totally. I definitely like that too. I was one, I think the Mindy project, she has some awesome like knit Argyle vests that are just so Mindy, the colors they chose.
00:07:16
Speaker
love to see a good knit in TV. Yeah, totally. And then lately it's been Banshees and Anishina with Colin Farrell. I was going to mention that too. Yeah, like they've been New York Times articles about the old little lady in Ireland who knit those sweaters and how they treated them. And it's been interesting, I think, 2020, like lockdown kind of, I
00:07:41
Speaker
What's the word I'm looking for? Kind of catalyzed a lot of the crapsing movement and seeing everything because people were at home doing knitting, but it's like, wait, here it is in production design. And I love how you brought up Mindy does the Mindy project because I need to remember who is the knitwear designer? Cause they were interviewed by, you know, we've knit a few years ago and she and her, she and her husband live full time and she does knitwear for television.
00:08:08
Speaker
very regularly. She did Hocus Pocus. She did Mindy Project and there's one other show. I don't remember but it was Oh, Stranger Things. That's what it was. She became she was interviewed when Stranger Three, the latest season Stranger Things came out. Right, right. Well, and the knitting world is actually looking at how they
00:08:34
Speaker
television movies are affecting at home hand knitters, right? It's becoming a much bigger thing all the way across. So it's really fun to watch that metamorphosis and that coming together of the two. So how do you think the sewing side of your business influences the knitting side?

Design Perspectives: Sewing vs Knitting

00:09:03
Speaker
Good question. I definitely think in terms of like I had seams, what I've learned is I often think in terms of shapes first and working on a new design that I'm still figuring it out. And what I did first was working on a pair of shorts. And these shorts are basically taken directly from a pair of shorts I already
00:09:33
Speaker
And had a friend of mine help me figure out how to pattern it. So we just patterned it on a piece of paper. And then I'm like, OK, let's go in here, figure out the basic shapes, figure out the gauges, apply that. So it's very much a hands-on process where I like to visualize shapes. And I have some books that help develop a men's sloper. I just got this book that's a fundamental design to men's casual wear.
00:10:00
Speaker
perfect for shapes and different things to see how people do things and constant inspiration. And I get a lot of inspiration from working on different costumes, working with different designers. I remember working at Santa Fe Opera and I ran out of time because I didn't have time to finish the submission, but we worked on these very strange space opera suits with these spiral sleeves. And I'm like, how can I do a spiral sleeve with a sweater?
00:10:27
Speaker
And I still want to figure it out, but I've been working on some other stuff instead. So it's nice as in costuming, there's more chances taken compared to even fashion sometimes. And I really love seeing how the drapers and the designers problem solve. And then I always just always think, oh, how can I net this?
00:10:51
Speaker
That's just, my mind just goes there automatically. How can I know this? Yeah. So I'm going to throw in here. Do you consider yourself a knitter or a sewist more? Which one do you consider you are first? Knitter first. That was my. Knitter first, sewist second. Okay. Yes. But like both have so much bleed over, but I remember last season chatting about knitting with some colleagues and I was like,
00:11:20
Speaker
Wow. So your whole life just revolves around knitting. And I'm like, I guess you're right. I have a point. I haven't really said it like that, I'd say, but you are correct. Yeah. And that's what I noticed with your knitting designs is your approach to construction is really unique. You know, we're not getting like,
00:11:46
Speaker
the, I think that people design what they know a lot of the time. Like if you've knit a lot of yoke sweaters, then you're comfortable designing a yoke sweater. And if you were experienced, Paul is working with seemed geometric shapes, then that's kind of the construction that you're more comfortable with. And so
00:12:08
Speaker
That was one of the reasons I wanted to invite you on here is because the types of constructions that I get from you in my inbox as a tech editor are so different from what I get from some of my other clients. I always really enjoy seeing what you come up with. Thank you. When I work on stuff, I'm like, okay, Nikki, let's see what happens here. Let's figure this out.
00:12:36
Speaker
It really comes in handy having the sewist background because if I'm working on a knitwear project from like something seems off here just looking at it and I think we can all get to that part intuitively with knitting and for me it's like not even so much the fabrics but I'm like wait a second this dimension seems off why is that and with this shorts pattern I was just designing I'm like why does this seem too long and I realized this yarn likes to
00:13:05
Speaker
I don't know if it shrinks exactly, but it just kind of like pulls in and does, it just changes dimensions so much from the original to blocked. And I'm like, okay, Paul, here's another example of trust your knitting. Even though I don't always trust it when it's on my knitting. So. What kind of fiber content was that? Same question. It was like fiber.
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's cotton. It's always cotton. Yeah, it's lovely. Every time I get a design to edit that's knitting cotton, we always have gauge problems every single time. That's like the biggest thing I see as a tech editor. Yeah, so just remember in a few weeks when I'm done with that, just remember this conversation.
00:13:59
Speaker
Well we have it recorded. And the other thing about cotton too is on the needles it's one, blocked it's two, worn it's three because the worn garment will tend to lengthen, it will tend to stretch.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I had one recently that they just wrapped the test knit and every, almost everybody said, Oh, it's too long. And I said, well, that's because it's cotton and your gauge swatch is going to be very different in terms of row gauge than when you put it on your body. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. And now

Memorable Projects and Personal Style

00:14:51
Speaker
I'm kind of.
00:14:52
Speaker
Now you got me rethinking about this project.
00:14:54
Speaker
We're going to just keep going and see what happens. The fact that if you've added side seams, it will stretch a lot less. See, a cotton garment absolutely has to have seams. You cannot do a cotton garment in the round because it will stretch so much on the body. And every time you wear it, it'll stretch more until it just reaches a point where it's unwearable.
00:15:22
Speaker
But with seams, the seams stabilize it. So it's the perfect type of fiber to consider doing flat with seams. It really is. Great. I'm much more encouraged now. It is seams. It has pockets. It's knit sideways for the technique I'm using. I've been in the sideways knitting lately in different ways.
00:15:50
Speaker
And yeah, yay. Much more encouraged now. That's another thing that'll probably help, although watch that it doesn't stretch width-wise.
00:16:00
Speaker
You know, do a really good test and actually wear them for a little bit because you may find that it stretches width-wise instead of length-wise. Yeah, you have to take your measurements before and after wearing and see how much it changes. Yeah, definitely. I'll be doing that. That's, you know, almost 50 years of experience talking.
00:16:29
Speaker
I appreciate it. This is why we're here to chat about all the things. Exactly, exactly. So Nikki, I think you've got some questions too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we kind of touched on this a bit already, but my next question was going to be, um, what are the similarities or differences in designing for sewing versus knitting? Cause I don't have a sewing background at all. Yeah. Uh, designing for sewing you
00:16:58
Speaker
It's stretch. It's stretch. For knitting, it's interesting just because I feel like sometimes my margin of error is less just because it's so time consuming because if I do something wrong with the sewing project, I can cut out a new piece if I need to and I just have a scrap piece of fabric later. With knitting, I feel like sometimes the amount of planning I put into writing a pattern is like, okay, let's see what happens.
00:17:28
Speaker
But I've kind of learned with some garments as I do this is like, OK, we're writing this as we go, figuring out how do I write it well for myself as I go. And those are really the big differences. And some rules apply to sewing that don't apply to knitting. But the generic rule of shapes still apply.
00:17:51
Speaker
What is interesting, I just found out my relationship with ease, it differs from sewing to knitting because I was working on a shirt over Christmas just for fun and I was practicing some pattern making out of this draping book.
00:18:14
Speaker
And I'm like, why do they want nine inches of ease or seven inches of ease? This doesn't make sense. Cause in my knitting brain, I'm like used to like, if I want something close fitting, it's four to six inches. And I'm like, Oh, I do need this much ease around my arms to actually move in it in a woven garment. So it's been an interesting, just that process changing my view of ease between my brains. Cause those rules often.
00:18:43
Speaker
just changed so much. And so that's been a fun lesson to learn. I think those are really the big differences. And yeah, that makes total sense because the type of fabric that you're working with in knitting is much stretchier, much drapier than a woven fabric, like you said.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah. And of course, again, it depends on fiber, right? And what the fabric is woven out of, but still, there's a huge difference there. And the fact that you came from the knitting side into the sewing side, really, it does change a little bit that mindset.
00:19:32
Speaker
100% I find that I find that really interesting that I have an another person a friend who did the opposite He was a couture tailor Turned knitter And so his entire
00:19:58
Speaker
picture is completely opposite of what we're talking about here. It's very interesting to compare in my head the two of you. Even myself going from being a knitter first to then trying to design and crochet, I have the same kinds of things. I think I approach pattern writing
00:20:24
Speaker
the way that a knitter would, not necessarily the way someone writing a crochet pattern who's like a native crocheter, so to speak, would approach it. Yeah. I'm going to try that just for fun. Writing a crochet pattern? Yeah. Yeah. Just for fun. Yeah, it'll stretch you, I think. I need to learn crochet first. And I have a friend of mine back, I was like, Paul, when you come back, we're teaching you how to crochet.
00:20:53
Speaker
Okay, sounds good. Who knows? Yeah, I learned to crochet as a teenager and I like it for different reasons than knitting. So I dabble in both but I still always feel like I'm a knitter first.
00:21:13
Speaker
Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. Um, another thing I wanted to ask you, Paul, is who do you, um, knit and design for? I guess your, your audience. I really designed for myself first. I want to create stuff that I'd want to wear that I find interesting in particular. Like even sometimes if I wear, like if I designed something that I don't wear very often.
00:21:40
Speaker
at least I have some sort of interest in it where I'm like, oh, this is a different shape, silhouette, technique. And I really like to design for male bodies, men's bodies, like myself, just because there's not as many patterns out there that match my style.
00:22:04
Speaker
that kind of bohemian, more artistic spirit, because a lot of men's wear patterns for knitwear, it seems like it's very classic or very avant-garde. I kind of want to blend the two. I kind of been thinking myself as, I kind of want to be the Ralph Lauren of knitwear in a way where it's like I'm creating these narratives and these characters behind my designs.
00:22:34
Speaker
And that's what I really love exploring. And my latest design, I just got the rights back, is the Fearless pullover. And their theme was confidence. And I'm like, ooh, let's play with this. And I'm like, OK, let's thank Harry Styles with pearls. Let's do this. Let's do this. And I really originally designed it as a men's sweater. And they're like, am I asking? I'm like, hey, who's going to be wearing this? I was going to be a woman, but we'll market it as a unisex sweater.
00:23:03
Speaker
hasn't necessarily like, it hasn't been marketed directly as that. But it's like, okay, how do I then market this more as they like, hey, this is a sweater for everyone, not just for a woman's body, because that's what it's been advertised on right now. Still a beautiful, beautiful sweater. I love that sweater to death. But that's really kind of the mindset I come from of how can I kind of push those boundaries? How do I look to the past in particular to influence my designs currently?
00:23:32
Speaker
just because fashion changes so much with the times. And it's fun to take a look at what did men used to wear and how can I make it apply now?
00:23:43
Speaker
I think your stellar sailor sweater is a fantastic example of that. I'm obsessed with the photos that you got for that design. And as soon as you said like you try to create a character, that's immediately what my head went to because when I see the picture of the model wearing that sweater, it just has so much personality.
00:24:10
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah, that was a really fun project because that was my first knit, first sweater design, first knitwear pattern that I've published really. It was my senior year of undergrad. It was part of my senior thesis and I designed a whole collection of menswear of exploring masculine identities and combining the past with the present and looking towards the future. And that one was kind of a like, how do we combine space travel with a classic aeronets and
00:24:39
Speaker
It was a really fun one. I love what I'm hearing about your process, the way you take an image of what you think a person's personality
00:24:59
Speaker
and how they could express it in their clothing. I love that. That just sounds so, so different and so fascinating. It's really exciting. Thank you. I feel like that really sums up Paul's approach to design. And that's what I just love about his patterns.
00:25:22
Speaker
Well, yeah, I'm super excited. I hear that you designed something for Uma Thurman. Yes, yes, I did. That was summer of 2019. I was working at Williamstown Theater Festival. It was my first professional theater gig as a summer stock. I was an intern.
00:25:46
Speaker
And I was reading through the play scripts before I went and I was reading a new translation of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts. And I read, I forget what the character's name is, the main female character, she's a knitter throughout the play. And I'm like, hmm.
00:26:06
Speaker
This could provide an interesting opportunity for me. And at the beginning of the summer, I let my supervisors know Nicole Sleev, and she's an incredible costume designer. And currently in New York City, we're still close friends. We had dinner when I was out vogue knitting live last February. And I said, hey, if we need anything knitting related, just let me know. I'd knit.
00:26:30
Speaker
And it was before I started doing more design stuff. And I remember my other supervisor, Nora Fisher at the time, she was like, well, Paul, have you ever considered doing knit design? And I'm like, a little bit, not quite yet. Like, because I was just in the throes of undergrad. And I'm like, I knew I kind of wanted to, but it wasn't the priority at the time. And I think it was July, July beginning of August. And at July beginning of August, my supervisor came in and we're like,
00:27:01
Speaker
Paul, you're making the show for the production. Go. And I'm like, okay. So it was fun. Cause that night I went on a walk in the evening, walking around Williamstown, Massachusetts on the campus. And I called my mom first thing. She's usually my first person I talked to about a new design or a new project. And she was a knitwear, Kim Hazenmeyer.
00:27:24
Speaker
Some of your listeners might know her as Big Sky Yarners and Crafts. And she was a knitwear designer for about 10 years from 2004, 2005 to about 2015. And so I grew up with a knitwear designer too. So I've known bits and pieces of the industry growing up. So it's been fun to discuss the differences then and now. And we came up with a game plan. I researched different lace patterns. It was nice because we were only a few hours away from the Web's warehouse and yarn store.
00:27:53
Speaker
So we drove to the, me and a design assistant drove to the yarn store. I nerded out so heavily being in this giant yarn store, and I knew webs of course. Then we picked up skeins of yarn, because what we did was picked up different yarn options for Uma Thurman, for Ms. Thurman. And I printed off a lot of different lace options. I did not design the lace pattern, because I knew we didn't have time to design lace. We just found some motifs that we liked.
00:28:22
Speaker
Got them double-checked with the costume designer. And the costume designer was like, I like these. I'm like, great. Then we went to rehearsal and brought the yarn options and the lace options. And we let her choose what she would like and what was her most favorite thing. And she selected the pattern. She selected Madeleine Tosh's DK Farm Twist, which I'm like, of course, just selected Madeleine Tosh. And she's also a knitter. I heard some knitters have seen her at Ryan Beck.
00:28:52
Speaker
And of course the director was confused by the twisted skeins that are not wound in a ball yet. So the director's like, how do you never know? And she quickly displayed with her hands how it worked. And she was saving her voice so she wasn't speaking that morning, which was kind of funny. But we got everything taken care of. And so we got picked up the rest of the yard and we grabbed it.
00:29:17
Speaker
We had a few issues because I called them like, hi, can you hold this yarn for me? They gave me the yarn colors. Didn't realize until we got back. So we drove back out there, grabbed the correct yarn, switched it out, came back, rounded all by hand because we didn't have any of the equipment to wind it into center full balls. And then we also ordered double of it. And just in case something all hell goes wrong with the shawl, I needed another new one.
00:29:42
Speaker
So for 40 hours that week, I was just sitting upstairs, listening to audio books away from the rest of the costume shop, just knitting like a madman. And Williamstown Theater Festival is interesting because it's a lot of big television and Broadway names like to go out there that summer. And it's hilarious because I went down there during a break and my friend's like, Paul, Amanda Seyford was in here. I'm like, wait, what? And Amanda Seyford was there that week because her husband's in a play. She was doing a cabaret performance.
00:30:10
Speaker
And, um, as well as a few other stars. So that week on my, we got a daily list of, here's what the interns are doing. And it was Paul like a mad man. I'm like, great, I can do that. So I just went up there, just knit, knit, knit, knit. Um, then I quick rigged it cause she was knitting on stage. So I was able to rig it in a way. So it would have completely fall apart. I would reset it every day and she said she could do it, but I'm like, I just wanted to take care of it for her.
00:30:38
Speaker
At one point, there was some miscommunication about how she wanted it set for the stage. And she was trying to communicate it through the wardrobe master who was trying to tell me. And I'm like, the channels, there wasn't good communication. I'm like, you know, we'll figure it out. So at one point, I'm pressing something at the ironing board and the stage management intern comes like, Paul, Uma would like to see you. And I'm like, OK.
00:31:06
Speaker
So I just follow him into her dressing room, and she's in costume already. And she's like, hi, I'd like it if you could just leave this. If you're setting this, and you're pre-setting this, I'd like it partially done through the row so I can just pick it up and knit. I'm like, oh yeah, that makes sense, totally. Because what I was doing was just finishing it so she can start a new row on stage. But it makes sense if she wants it started mid-row just to make it easier to knit on stage. And I'm like, oh yeah, we can do that.
00:31:37
Speaker
The wardrobe supervisor, who is also an intern, came into the dressing room, looked at me, he's like, what are you doing in here? The director comes in like, who are you? Is she an Uma? And I'm like, oh, I'm the knitter. He's the knitter. He's like, oh, I love the Charlotte. It's beautiful. I'm like, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I leave the dressing room after that with Uma. And the head of wardrobe over, I was like, what are you doing in there? And I'm like, I'll tell you later. It was just so surreal just because I was a technical intern. I was never really backstage very often. I was just in the costume shop building costumes.
00:32:07
Speaker
And so that was a really fun experience. I had reset it. I remember one time I was resetting the shawl and she comes in to grab some food and she's like, oh, thank you so much for doing this. You don't have to be like, no, no, I appreciate it. I want to make sure it's taken care of. And she's like, as she's leaving, she says to me, you know, I love, I love an object with emotional weight to it. And I feel like I just had it and she leaves and I'm like,
00:32:35
Speaker
just touched. And my parents got to see the first preview performance. And I didn't know how it was exactly utilized in that production. And my mom was like, oh, it's such a big player. I'm like, what do you mean? And I watched it later. And she's working on it throughout the play. And at the end, her son is dying of syphilis because that's how all Ibsen plays go. Someone dies.
00:33:02
Speaker
And she grabs her needles. She rips the shawls off the needles and drapes it around her son as he's dying. Oh, wow. Yeah. And the review came out for the play in the New York Times. And my shawls in this photo of him dying.
00:33:27
Speaker
So, but I'm uncredited, but my work's in the New York Times. So I'm just screaming internally still, but. To even think about it, just it, that's so huge. Yeah. Yeah. Like the, like by the end of the season, the stage managers are like, Paul, you just need to take the shot. I'm like, no, I can't do that.
00:33:52
Speaker
But we ordered double the yarn, so they let me keep the rest of the yarn. So I have like 10 seams of metal massage back home that I haven't done anything with yet. I think it's been discontinued, so I'll turn it into someone else's design. But it was absolutely surreal and wonderful. And I still think so fond upon that experience. I think I would have wanted the shawl to be given to Uma.
00:34:16
Speaker
Same. And I don't know why she didn't keep it or what happened. I think it's in storage somewhere is just kept with the production package. I don't know what happened to it. Oh, that just gives me chills. It's just Oh, what an amazing way to start your career.
00:34:34
Speaker
Really? It was like right at the beginning of things. Oh, my gosh, how amazing. Of course, then we went into pandemic. Yeah, yeah. What a big effect. Well, that's what happened because 2019 I did like that was a really big year for me professionally because that was my first summer gig. I did a quote unquote off campus study slash study abroad.
00:35:02
Speaker
in New York City doing professional internships or college credit with the Metropolitan Opera Costume Shop and a off-Broadway company called New Light Theater Project. So I was there for three months and that was 2019. So once I got back from my 2020 semester undergrad, I'm like, let's go, let's do this, let's do this. And then completely shut down, just, you know, world, like the rug ripped out from under my feet. So it like, yes.
00:35:32
Speaker
2019 was one of my banner years to just kick off everything. Well, it'll get back. Yes. I think it's coming back. I think it's back. Was the pandemic, did it have any effect on you moving and expanding out to pattern writing? Yeah, in a way.
00:35:59
Speaker
What had like knitting was definitely my, that was my coping mechanism during the lockdown was like, I can't sew, I just can't touch a sewing machine. I'll just get my knitting because I know knitting. And I had some, I thrifted some rug yarn from a flea market in New York City. And I was just wanting to feel connected to the city somehow because I was there spring break when the world shut down. So I just felt the city just kind of collapsing around me.
00:36:29
Speaker
And it was such a place of freedom for me. And then to feel it as such a place of turmoil was just strange. And so what I did was I found this vintage knitwear pattern. It was like 1930s. You can get one of those $5 patterns off at Etsy. I was just curious how it was constructed. And what I did was I changed it from fingering weight to use the worsted weight rug yarn.
00:36:55
Speaker
So that was kind of like me starting to play it out. And I had done a little bit of like, not so much pattern writing, but making my own designs from other people's books. So that helped me just have that creative spark, feel connected to New York City, helped feel connected to the world. And that summer I signed up, because I don't have anything else going on, nor gone needed task knitters for her latest design with Brooklyn Tweed. And that was the Hartigan pullover.
00:37:25
Speaker
And that was knit with Piri. I got to work with Nora a little bit as a test knitter and did some photos with some friends. And that took off quite a bit more than I thought it would. It was posted by Brooklyn Tweed in January 21. And that's how I got in my Instagram bio, the love child of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, because someone commented that. And I'm like, okay, this is sticking now.
00:37:55
Speaker
That led a lot of people to my work was that test knit, which was really cool. And I got to wear that pullover to Vogue Knitting Live. I brought it with me. And I was wearing it that day. I'm like, hopefully I'll see Nora today. And we met each other the day before. And then all of a sudden, we were on the Vogue Knitting floor. And I hear someone say, Nora, that's one of your designs. And I turn around, and it's Nora and her friend Judy.
00:38:22
Speaker
And I'm like, well, hi, I was like, I was hoping to see you. So now I have a photo of Nora and I with the Hartigan pullover, kind of one of the others, like the sweater that helped kicked it all off. That's great. That's great.

Challenges in Inclusive Knitwear Design

00:38:37
Speaker
So I've been told that you and what I'm hearing is you tend to work towards inclusivity, you know, especially gender inclusivity. You're looking to make
00:38:50
Speaker
patterns that are more up to date, but kind of cross over a little bit and give male sweater wearers a better spectrum. What kind of challenges are you facing with being able to do things that span both genders? I think it's really sizing.
00:39:15
Speaker
That's hard. And I think it's it's been hard for me to find male test knitters because usually I get a lot of women test knitters, which is great. I love it. And then of course, the biggest comment I get from test knitters are the sleeves are so long. I'm like, yes, because they're designed for my body. And that's what I always tell them you can adjust. Always feel free to adjust sweater patterns to your body. Like and that's what we do constantly as knitters with other people's patterns is how do we make it fit for our body and
00:39:45
Speaker
So that's really kind of what my focus is, is I don't really worry about, is this too feminine? Is this too masculine? I will say sometimes I will go too feminine just because I love a ruffle every once in a while, but I don't wear a ton of them. So I'm like, I want to just make sure that my designs, that anyone feels like they can wear them, that they can see themselves in my designs in some way or fashion. I may have a few people I'll send your way for potential test knitters.
00:40:11
Speaker
Thank you, I appreciate it. I've got a couple of people that I know that may, I don't know how many test knits they do, but if they're interested, they're good men knitters that would have a good range of sizes to knit for. So I'll bring you up in my group.
00:40:35
Speaker
Thank you. I really appreciate it. Plus, I love just seeing what men kniters are up to. There we go. Words. And it was just fun because even about knitting live, whenever I saw a male knitter, I'm like, hey, how are you doing? I just feel like we already have kind of this automatic connection and we already have this connection to the feminine spirit through knitting, through learning through often a woman in our lives.
00:41:00
Speaker
So I always want to make sure I feel like I empower men knitters in a way just because there's not too many of us out there and I just want to have fun along the way. I think that's a true statement. I think men knitters have a tendency to be closet knitters.
00:41:20
Speaker
You know, we need to get you guys out and socializing more and joining our groups more because I know that the guild that I participate in here locally, which I say locally very loosely because while there is one closer, I prefer the one that's an hour away.
00:41:48
Speaker
when I can go. I haven't been able to go for quite a while. We always love it when the men come in, and we try so hard to keep them coming. And for some reason, because they're the only guy, they tend to disappear on us. And that's so sad, because they have so much to give to the group. Yeah, it's interesting because I have been that man, where I am the only man in the group. And

Community in the Male Knitting World

00:42:17
Speaker
I've always been comfortable with women, so it's never been a bad thing. But I always appreciate it when I'm able to meet a male designer or a male knitter. And I lost my train of thought. Because, A, I've been tokenized. I remember I worked for Yarn Bar at the Lakes of Montana. Shout out there. And I loved it dearly. But there were a few times where it's like,
00:42:42
Speaker
My boss is like, Hey, Paul, can you come in for photos so you can be the male knitter? I'm like, Yeah, that's fine. I can do that. And it's not a bad thing. But I'm like, Hey, like, I'm not here just because I'm a man. I'm here because I am a good knitter. I'm a good designer. And I think it's hard because I think sometimes knitters can feel like I'm only getting attention because I'm in I'm like, No, you're talented. You've been knitting for years. You're very talented.
00:43:06
Speaker
And that's how it is. And, um, I think one of my favorite experiences with, with communities was when I was in New York city in 2019, New York city 2019, that was not like the peak of my life, but it was a high point. And I did the New York city yard crawl and I didn't know it existed until the day it was happening. I'm like, wait, what there's a yard crawl. So I toured all over all like the Manhattan and Brooklyn.
00:43:35
Speaker
And one night I ended up in String Thing Studio that Felicia Eve owns. And I was there that night and I have never seen such an energetic group of knitters before. Because everyone is chatting, gabbing. Gigi was there and her daughter Shelby was there and Shelby looks at me and is like, Roseanne? I'm like, yes.
00:44:03
Speaker
And it was absolutely magical. And I met Gregory. What is his last name? He's a crochet designer. He goes by Gregory Stitch. Yes, that's right. That is actually not his real name. I can't remember what his real name is. But oh my God, to get to meet him. Yeah, I got to meet him. I met Louis Boria of Brooklyn Boynitz.
00:44:29
Speaker
Yup. And I ran into him, like, Hey, I don't know if you remember me just want to give you my card. It's lovely to meet you again. I got to meet Felicia again reconnect. And so that night was like, I met all the like all the I didn't know there are big names at the time because I was still kind of starting off and I'm like, wait, I met Gigi. I didn't realize how big this was. I was invited to their men's knit night because there's men's knit nights in New York City, not so much anywhere else.
00:44:57
Speaker
which I want to change. We'll figure that out. We'll figure out a game plan. We'll strategize later. It was magical because even when I was at Vogue Knitting Live, it was my first Thursday night. I ran into Nico Duke and I met him in Manhattan in 2019. He was like, Nico, how are you? It's good to see you. He's like, oh, hey. We're just chatting. He's like, hey, just want to let you know there's a men's knitting group at
00:45:26
Speaker
Oh, what is the Upper East Side Store? Nitty Cities. And I was like, oh great, yeah, I'll show up. So I went there after I had dinner with a friend of mine and it was absolutely magical and wonderful. An actor was there who was in the revival of Oklahoma, which I got to see in 2019. I'm like, oh my gosh, I love that production. It was incredible. And connect with male knitters that way. And I got to see them at the conference. And I'm just like, just so like,
00:45:53
Speaker
thankful that there's a common yarn between us, unintended. Yeah, yes, I agree completely. We have, I think, up here, I live in Alaska, and where I see the men joining in most is with the spinners and the weavers.
00:46:14
Speaker
We very rarely get them in the knit groups, which is like I said, it's for me, it's sad because I think there's so much that we learn from you, right? About sizing.
00:46:29
Speaker
about male aesthetic, right? It's because we knit for our husbands, they've got one aesthetic, but a male knitter has a completely different viewpoint. And one of the things I'm going to say right now that I've absolutely loved about the pandemic is it's connected me with a much more diverse group of knitters.
00:46:57
Speaker
Remind me to give you an invitation when we're done. Yes. Yes, please. Thank you. I will. All right. So I was going to say we talked about so many things just now, but there were a couple of things that I sort of wanted to pull out of that because the original question was about designing for gender inclusivity. And one of the things that I wanted to point out was
00:47:27
Speaker
if you you know a lot of a lot of probably a lot of our listeners and certainly a lot of my clients or most of my clients are female um and a lot of us tend to model for ourselves because we probably designed it based on our own sizing
00:47:47
Speaker
But something that I think we could do better is perhaps higher models if we have a budget for it so that we can show people that different types of people and different types of bodies can still wear this design. And another thing that Paul said about his test kits that I think is really important is you can adjust lengths pretty easily in knitting if the instructions are written that way.
00:48:15
Speaker
And that's something that we as designers can be mindful of when we're writing the pattern.
00:48:19
Speaker
Yes, exactly. And making those notations of where and how these things might be adjusted for different body types. I'm going to throw out here a designer name. We've talked, and Jill Wolcott is really trying to do a lot towards creating sizing that is more inclusive.
00:48:49
Speaker
because she actually looks at the body from the skeletal perspective because she realized that we were designing for this limited profile and there's a lot of people out there that no longer fit that profile.
00:49:10
Speaker
If you look at our transgender population, for example, they may have started with a male skeletal profile and then transformed into a female form, but they still have the skeleton. That doesn't change.
00:49:31
Speaker
And so they still tend to have the broader shoulders. They still tend to have the narrower hips. So how do you design so that any body shape can knit successfully? And it's a numbers challenge. It's a math challenge. And it's one that Nikki and I are probably
00:49:57
Speaker
still scratching our head about every single day trying to think, how do I make these numbers work for the widest population? And as designers, how do we include the suggestions of, OK, here's where you could change this if you're this body shape? Yeah, and I've seen some different approaches to this. And there's one that comes to mind that I really liked. It was called The Block Party Cardi by Chase Harpool.
00:50:26
Speaker
And he, you know that one? Yeah, I know that one. I think, yeah, I do. Chase is great. That's how I connected with you. I'm like, Chase. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. It's because he was a, you know, he's, he's, he's a knitting man. And I'm like, he's gonna have a cool tech, tech editor. Let me reach out just because I knew we'd had that connection. I'm like, Oh, yeah, who's your tech editor? Like, Mickey Jensen. I'm like, Great, thank you. Keep going. I love Chase. Oh, great. Oh, great. And I don't know if I don't know if I knew that that referral came from him. I'll have to thank him. But
00:50:55
Speaker
That particular design, he actually wrote two sets of instructions like if you have broad shoulders, work the shoulder shaping this way. If you have narrower shoulders, work the shoulder shaping this way. So it wasn't even gendered instructions. It wasn't like this is the female version. This is the male version. It was very specific to the needs of your body shape. And I just love that approach.
00:51:24
Speaker
And I think that's where Jill's coming from too. It's looking at where does the skeleton start, right? And then how do we add padding if you're a plus size person? Where is your padding? How much padding do you have? And then knit for that because
00:51:52
Speaker
Everybody has a skeleton and what's your skeleton and then where is your padding added on and that's her approach which is totally Gender neutral in its in its thinking but it came from the thought pattern of okay, there's all of these different body types and
00:52:15
Speaker
And those body types are adding pattern, padding in different proportions because of how our society is changing and how we're becoming more accepting well.
00:52:35
Speaker
Let's say some of us are becoming more accepting. We're trying to make it universal, right? But the more we work on things like that, where we do look at it from the perspective of
00:52:55
Speaker
Not are you a man or a woman? But you have this skeleton you add padding in these areas You may not add it in the shoulders. You may not add it in the chest You mean you may add most of your padding in the hip region, right? Where is your padding? How much padding is there based on this skeleton and how do you knit for that? And that's where we need to get to Exactly
00:53:25
Speaker
And we're having the same conversations in theater, and I've had the advantage of being able to work in theater where we work with such a large variety of body types and body sizes, and what do we do to compensate, or I wouldn't even say compensate, accommodate, that's a better word, accommodate for the bodies. And just like, it's interesting, because what I've kind of realized is I'm really good at
00:53:54
Speaker
Oh, I need to pinch this out here in a woven garment because it's an easy alteration to make as a seam. Now the question is for me, how do I express this for the knitter? How do I say, OK, here are the instructions I make for how do you make this correction? Because no one wants to frog six inches of a shoulder seam to narrow the shoulders. So this is interesting food for that for me.
00:54:17
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're taking the time to make your own clothes as a hand knitter or otherwise, then the whole point is to be able to make something that fits you well. And a good pattern should tell you exactly how to do that. Within reason. Yes. Within reason. I think
00:54:43
Speaker
You know, we've gotten to a point where knitters expect exact instructions for every single body type in one pattern. If you go back to a pattern that was written in, say, the 1950s or 1960s, it was knit in one size. And then every knitter adjusted according to what they needed.
00:55:13
Speaker
Oh, 100%. And we've got to find the middle ground. We do. And it's interesting just because I follow a lot of historical customers too. And it's interesting just because the knowledge base for people with sewing and knitting
00:55:35
Speaker
and just overall fit was much higher comprehension back then, because people were making much more of their clothes, plus clothes were a much higher investment at the time. Yeah, they clothes were higher investment than they are now. And what I think could be interesting to answer that question of is, and I think what is her name? She did this lovely box pulled over where she had bus starts. Her big thing has been bus starts lately.
00:56:05
Speaker
and adding those, I forget her name. Anyway, but it's like, how can we do like a bootcamp of like, hi, here are different ways to apply how to alter a pattern to fit your body in with an existing pattern. Just because like, I like logistically, I can't always do spell out every single body type. And that's what I have had to learn along the way is how do I adjust patterns for my body type? I've been lucky along the way with some things with shoulders, but
00:56:35
Speaker
I agree with you where it's like, how do we help knitters figure out how to adjust that? Because our knitters today are not taught in the home the way they were back then.
00:56:48
Speaker
Or even in many situations, they were taught in school. I mean, when I went to school, okay, I'm considerably considerably older than both of you. Let's just admit that. And when I went to school, it was still mandatory to take what they called home ec classes at about age 12 to 15. And that included cooking, sewing,
00:57:17
Speaker
I don't recall having a knitting class there. It was mostly cooking and sewing. But it was mandatory. And it was mandatory for the boys as well as the girls. We all had to do at least one semester of Home Ec. And so,
00:57:43
Speaker
My generation, they were starting to move away from that a little bit. But the following generations lost the ability to learn those things from their parents or their grandparents and their teachers. And now we have a whole generation of knitters that didn't get the advantages of that. And therefore, they don't have the knowledge. So you're right. How do we write those boot camps? Maybe what we need to do
00:58:12
Speaker
And this just occurred to me, so it could be completely off the wall, is to write a pattern that is nothing but how to add bust darts, how to do waist shaping, how to make armhole adjustments.
00:58:35
Speaker
And that just kind of like, you know, the fish lips kiss heel for a sock is nothing but the heel. It doesn't include all the rest of the sock. Maybe what we need to do is come out with a series of patterns that address those adjustments that can be made to a pattern and how you approach that math. Now there's books out there, but I don't know. I think it'd be good to have like a whole like even like
00:59:04
Speaker
little workshop book even of like, here's the common alterations in a garment. Here's how you adjust them. This is how you compensate for gauge. Here's how you compensate for yarn. Here's how you compensate for this. And it would require just a bit of, of course, it's going to require math on the knitter, but it's never going to be perfect. Oh, hello. That looks knitting pattern essentials.
00:59:29
Speaker
Sally Melville's Knitting Pattern Essentials, Adapting and Drafting Knitting Patterns for Great Knitwear is one of my go-to books for the math of different adjustments because she treats each area of the sweater individually and gives you a worksheet for how to calculate the math based on your gauge and your information. But when I'm doing grading,
00:59:59
Speaker
I can often refer to this to help me remember, okay, I need to use this formula to figure out for, you know, this size and then apply it to all the other sizes. This, this is, this is, I can't tell you how often I grab this book. I'll have to grab a copy of it. It looks great. Well, and another thing, but I've been thinking about in regards to this is,
01:00:25
Speaker
Alongside all the crafting movements is a lot of people have been interested in making vintage patterns for themselves. And they're having the same questions, both in knitting and sewing, where all these patterns are written for smaller people or it's not a greater range of sizes. And what we as theater people do for like way before YouTuber is going to figure this out and a lot of sewists have as well, is they create a basic body sloper with their measurements that they can adjust.
01:00:55
Speaker
And then they can take the pattern, get the shapes out, and then they're able to apply those shapes to their sloper. And I'm like, what is the knitting equivalent of this? Because I love to do like, hey, make a sloper workshop with a class where we just get the paper and pencils out, take measurements. So we go over, here's how to take measurements. Because I've learned with my test knitters in particular, the biggest measurement people think with
01:01:24
Speaker
Arm length is underarm, like armpit to the wrist. Oh no, it's center back to wrist. And people just don't have that intuition because people don't measure themselves anymore like they used to.
01:01:35
Speaker
Okay, I think we're figuring out class ideas now, ladies. I'm really appreciating. We're going to write this all down. Take your notes, yes. I was going to say, I think that kind of educating the knitter on how to look at the measurements in the pattern and determine whether they are the correct proportions for your own body
01:01:58
Speaker
maybe more crucial than saying if you want to add a bust dart do it this way if you want to add waist shaping do it this way because you're right you can't accommodate every body size in that way in every pattern like just giving the knitter a sense of what what the proportions in your sizes are
01:02:19
Speaker
are so they can say well that that looks great but I know that it's not going to fit my arm can I adjust it to my arm or whatever it is just making sure that they have enough information to decide for themselves whether it's going to work for them because I know like shopping off the rack
01:02:40
Speaker
I've learned that not every cut and style is gonna work for my body type and that follows in knitting patterns too I think. Exactly and I think it's a process and maybe the bootcamp is how to learn your own body because we're so used to off-the-rack things we don't know how to measure ourselves and
01:03:05
Speaker
The other reason why I know my body so well is A, through my clothes, and then B, I have my colleagues measure me for when I'm working on a new pattern, especially for a sloper, just because I need those measurements as a base. I think this is a good idea of figuring out how do we help people learn their bodies a bit more and their body relationships in terms of measurements and proportions.
01:03:27
Speaker
That makes me think of Amy Herzog and all the work she did on that. That's another good foundation that unfortunately she's no longer doing her custom fit patterns, but her books and classes are still out there on how to measure your body, how to see what your body type really is, and then how to knit for that.
01:03:53
Speaker
What styles look good on this shaped body so that you know where to start to? I think we're sitting on a gold mine here. I think we got to write this class. Boy, we just really dug deep, didn't we? This is great.
01:04:12
Speaker
We threw all our prepared questions out the window and I think we came up on something much better. Yes, this is the best sort of process is just chatting and discussing it and I love this part.
01:04:25
Speaker
I told you that the questions are a foundation. All they do is give us a base for when we go, uh, what do we say next? There are a couple of questions that, that I tend to ask everybody and I'm going to start in with those. Um, do you need other people's designs and why, or why not? I do.
01:04:54
Speaker
because I need to give my brain a break. It's nice to just to go into autopilot and just knit someone else's stuff. What I really like to do in particular and what I've realized with some current projects and test knitting, knitting ruined my life. Yield is pattern. It's a bulky weight yoke color work sweater. I'm double checking the name. The Yield is pullover. That's correct.
01:05:20
Speaker
And just because it looked fun, it matched my style. And I love to see how other designers and what their processes are. And what I've realized with me in either test knitting or buying someone else's pattern is I want to learn a new technique or try a new yarn, something that I haven't worked with yet. With the Yielders, it's SpinCycle's plump because my hearsay pattern was my first time working with SpinCycle. Absolutely loved it. And I wanted to try some of their other yarns.
01:05:50
Speaker
And then also what I really wanted to knit next is the Boulevard bag by Kate by Lily Kate makes just because I have never seen anything like that before knitting. And I'm like, we'll look at it. I haven't seen it. It's a really fun kind of cross like body bag that looks it's almost like a fanny pack, but not quite. And it has a zipper. She uses zip ties and welts to add stability.
01:06:17
Speaker
And that just blew my brain. And I'm like, this is amazing. How did you do this? How can I take this to apply to my own designs? What can we play with this year? So I'm really excited about that one. So those are really kind of, that's what I'm thinking about when I'm meeting someone else's designs is do I need a break? What do I want to learn? What yarns do I want to play with, et cetera.
01:06:42
Speaker
I'm going to just go ahead and move forward and skip a couple of things, Nikki. So forgive me because of the way we've done this. What is coming next? What is in the wings? And do remember, we're recording much sooner than this will air. So think about in terms of airing date, what can your knitters expect coming up?
01:07:12
Speaker
Yes, very good question. The biggest thing is this fall, I will, one of my sweater patterns is, will be published in tennis grays, the official Nightmare Before Christmas knitting book. So you can take a look forward to that in September. Pre-order links are available. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you can pre-order. I did biasedly only do Barnes and Noble because I grew up going to Barnes and Noble. I've worked at Barnes and Noble. My mom's worked at Barnes and Noble. So
01:07:40
Speaker
Support box stores more than Amazon. I'm also, in May, what will you guys know? In May, you'll know I'll be teaching a class with the Montana Yarn Bar in Billings, Montana. And I'm currently working on a workshop pattern for them. I don't really want to reveal quite yet what it is. It'll be a very fun scarf involving a very famous doll is what I'll lead to, which is probably, you'll all know who that is as soon as I said that.
01:08:10
Speaker
I'm also working on the shorts pattern I mentioned. I'm hoping that'll be in test setting by the time you hear this. And then also a few other summer patterns and some other collaborations we're working on with different designers and companies. So I'm just busy. Nikki, you're going to get a lot of stuff coming your way as soon as I get it done.
01:08:33
Speaker
The best few weeks have been a little busy crazy, so try to get my act together, but it's been one day at a time for the situation on my end. That's the designer's catchphrase. I have learned. That is totally because a true designer has more ideas than they could ever possibly publish. Right?
01:08:56
Speaker
What did I tell you when we first greeted each other this morning? I was totally distracted because I woke up this morning with an idea. And that was all I wanted to think about.
01:09:07
Speaker
So I think I'm moving my way into true designerism. So you're a relative, I'm going to say relatively new designer in comparison to some of the people that I know and have worked with. What suggestions would you give for someone who is thinking maybe they want to get into designing or maybe they haven't, they've published like one pattern?
01:09:39
Speaker
I would say the biggest lesson I've learned with being a new designer is communication. One of my first test myths, I thought it was going to be intuitive that people got this email. Oh no, I didn't know about this until like two, three weeks before the pattern was released. So I didn't have as many test editors as I thought I had on board.
01:10:03
Speaker
communications key, just like, don't, you don't need to pass your people, but just figure out early what works for you and where it works best for me. It's Slack because it's a simple one channel. I, what I tried to do before was a Google groups and like the invitation email got lost in spam. That's simply what happened. So when those mistakes happen, like yourself, like it's okay, move on. I've learned like, okay, remember this for next time, learn as you go.
01:10:32
Speaker
Um, those are really the big things. Also, don't be afraid of trying something new. One of my favorite, uh, one of my favorite moments. And with my latest pattern here, say pull over as an Instagram. I have never knit a brioche sweater before. I've only done a cowl. Should I still do this sweater idea? People were like, hell yeah. I'm like, great. We're going into this. So feel free to jump in head first. That's honestly, it serves, it has served me so well.
01:10:58
Speaker
People like Nikki and friends and family are willing to help you along the way to figure out how to help you get your idea across a current pattern I'm working on with Nikki. I'm like, Nikki, this is the goal. I don't know how to get there because sometimes what happens in my brain isn't always what works best on paper. And even me trying to write it down on paper is hard because I think so geometrically. And I've kind of realized I'm like a computer where when I see something,
01:11:26
Speaker
I see this point of a knitting pattern. I know to do this intuitively and it's not always intuitive to another knitter. So it's those kinds of questions that I'm asking myself. Okay, great. And last but not least, where and how can our listeners find you and your work? You can find me on Instagram at paul.haze30, paul.haze30.
01:11:55
Speaker
Hazemire is way harder to spell. Um, you can also find me on my website, Paul Hazemire.com. You can also find me on Ravelry at Paul H A Z E 30 at Paul Hayes 30. Um, I have a newsletter. I'm starting to do some more stuff on social media when I can. Instagram is usually the platform I use the most in terms of interacting with my followers. Um, yeah, that's the best places you can find me.
01:12:20
Speaker
Okay, well, we'll definitely have those links in the show notes for people so they don't have to spell Hayes Meyer. Good plan. It's a hard one. They don't have to say it either. And let me tell you folks, the very first question I asked him this morning is how do you pronounce your last name? Yes, because that's always the question. And when I was working on just preparing for a little bit for this podcast, I was listening to a few episodes and I listened to the episode with you, Nikki,
01:12:49
Speaker
And when you brought me up and you said my name correctly, I died. I'm like, oh my gosh, she said my name right. And my whole family was so excited and it was wonderful.
01:13:00
Speaker
Oh, phew, I'm glad I got it right, because I don't even remember, but. OK, the episode coming out tomorrow, as we are recording this in mid-April, is with Happy Go Niddy, Helene Diemer, an indie dyer from New Zealand. Now, I knew not to call her Helen or Helene,
01:13:29
Speaker
right, which is spelled Helene. But I had no clue, you know, it was like, last name is spelled is spelled D H M E R. D. Yeah, myrrh. She's from New Zealand, but well, she lives in New Zealand, but she's from Sweden, I think. Yeah, anyway, so yeah, names are a thing in this in this podcast, believe me.
01:13:58
Speaker
Well, certainly, because we meet each other online, we see each other's names in writing, but we don't always hear them out loud, right? And I have an international client base. Yeah, for sure. And even my handle, Hanits and Huga, everybody asked me, how the heck do you pronounce that? Well, that and I remember people's Instagram handles before I remember their names, honestly. That's been such a common thing for me lately. It's like,
01:14:26
Speaker
I know your handle. I do not know your name or like, wait, what's the name? What's the name? That's my second question. Oh, yeah. I've been I've been called out at the local yarn shop. Hey, your hand. It's in hygge for however they think it might be. All right. Well, Paul, it's been really exciting. I can't wait to to dig in a little deeper and do me a favor.
01:14:52
Speaker
When you send me, well, would you send me a link to that bag pattern? I'm really curious. And I also have some ideas about that spiral arm, I think. Sounds good. I'll send you what I have notes wise. I have a little rendering done. I'll send you what I have and we'll chat.
01:15:12
Speaker
This is going to be up all night. Oh, God. I'm going to sleep for the next two weeks, I guarantee. All right, folks, I hope you've enjoyed this as much as we have. Paul, it's been so much fun. Thank you for joining Nikki and I today. And Nikki. Thank you for having me. I hope you have a great afternoon. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye.
01:15:40
Speaker
Join us next time when Nikki and I entertain a very special guest and we talk writing those out of the box designs.
01:15:52
Speaker
Don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you listen and join the conversation in our Ravelry or Facebook groups.