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Episode 37: Clare of Sister Mountain
162 Plays1 year ago
Today I talk with Clare of Sister Mountain. She is a knitwear designer and she teaches the Sweater Design Workshop.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:13
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.
00:00:37
Speaker
Well, welcome back, everybody. Today, I am absolutely thrilled and excited. I have wanted to interview this person for over a year, Claire Mountain Manipan. I am so happy you're with me today.
00:00:55
Speaker
Thank you so much, Lisa. Thank you for having me. It's just really a dream come true, kind of. I've been following your newsletter for a very long time. I love what you have to say. It's just, it's really thrilling to get to meet you face to face. And I'm sorry our listeners can't see us, but you don't want to see the mess behind me.
00:01:20
Speaker
Agreed. On both sides. It's all good.
Claire's Knitting Journey
00:01:26
Speaker
Well, Claire, the first question I love to ask all of my guests is, tell us how you got started. What is your design story? Okay. So like many knitters, my sort of learning about knitting came from my grandma. So my grandma taught me to knit when I was really little. I was probably about eight at the time.
00:01:49
Speaker
I became absolutely obsessed around the age of 13 to the point where I did a whole presentation in my English class, like teaching other kids about
00:02:00
Speaker
knitting. So I was very keen when it came to choosing what I wanted to do as a career. We had like these kind of careers advisor meetings when I was about 15. I was like, I want to do something related to knitting, but everyone was telling me you can't have a career in hand knitting, like there's, you know, it's just not a good route, not a profitable thing to get into.
00:02:22
Speaker
And so I looked into learning like commercial knitwear design. So I was lucky to be able to go on and study fashion knitwear design at university. The course that I actually printed out to show my career as advisor all those years ago, I managed to get onto that course and it was four years of just really cool stuff.
00:02:46
Speaker
I learned how to use knitting machines, like big commercial kind of dubious. I learned all about using domestic hand flat type machines. And we did a little bit of hand knit stuff, which I obviously relished because that is where my interest lies. But it was just a really cool experience, one where I got to spend the year in industry as well, which is great.
00:03:10
Speaker
When I graduated, I went on to work as a swatch designer again in the commercial knitwear industry. So essentially a swatch designer is, they're not knitting square swatches. They're actually knitting concepts for garments. So my job was to sit at my beloved Dubia, my five gauge Dubia all day long and knit up almost like sort of, I would say like two year old size garments.
00:03:36
Speaker
Just the front the sleeves and the neckline and I would come up with ideas for garments and essentially the sort of roles that swatches play in the industry is a lot of Fashion brands or suppliers they can't afford to hire like specialist knitwear designers They'll have maybe women's wear designers or menswear designers, but they wouldn't necessarily have the budget to hire a specialist knitwear designer so
00:04:03
Speaker
Swatches play an important role because the women's wear designer or the men's wear designer will have knowledge about maybe silhouette or general construction, but they don't have that level of creativity or expertise that allows them to come up with really interesting knitwear designs. So swatches are really useful. It kind of shows the design team what's possible. And also it's just like a very tangible thing that they can hold and
00:04:30
Speaker
play around with and just see how it drapes and stuff because they're quite large scale. They're really good for people who are not expert knitters. So that was what I did for a couple of years and it was brilliant. It was extremely creative. I was surrounded by yarn like in every nook and cranny of this studio I worked in which as you can imagine was lovely.
00:04:53
Speaker
But I realized quite quickly actually that I'm a hand knitter. I love hand knitting and I was determined to make it work as like in the hand knitting industry.
Transition to Hand Knitting
00:05:05
Speaker
So I actually left that job to work for Bespoke Tailors, which is a bit of a curve ball. But that was a fun job. I learned all about fit and things like that. But all whilst doing that, I started releasing my own designs. Started with a hat.
00:05:21
Speaker
as is often a good place to start when you're starting releasing hand knitting patterns. I was lucky, like I was really lucky, it was kind of fortunate that I didn't, I didn't have a huge community, like in the online knitting world, I didn't know a huge amount of people.
00:05:38
Speaker
But the pattern that I released, I kind of released it as a taster of what my patterns would be like. So I offered it as a free pattern in exchange for people signing up for my email list. And I managed to get 500 people that first day, which I was like, what?
00:05:57
Speaker
This is crazy. It must have just hit Ravelry's Hot Right Now page. I was just over the moon. And so it just went from there. I started just eating, sleeping, breathing, knitwear design. I couldn't stop. And yeah, I just went on from there. I did a few more accessories, but then I just started focusing on sweaters because that's
00:06:22
Speaker
That's what I love to knit. That's what I love to design. And yeah, that's why I tend to focus now. Okay. I did look through your patterns and there's some very lovely ones there that all this time I followed your newsletter and I'd never actually looked at your pattern store. Isn't that terrible? It's all good. I think you are one of many who are also the same.
00:06:47
Speaker
Um, I guess it's because of the distraction of all of the other things, right? Yeah, but it is what it is. Um, who do you like to, to knit for? I mean, who's, who's the person you picture designing for?
00:07:06
Speaker
So I think if I answer the question honestly, I'm often designing for myself. So when a big part of me, not necessarily designing patterns when I started releasing patterns, but even from a young age when I was a teenager,
00:07:26
Speaker
at knitting groups and things, I would always be playing around with adjusting patterns because I couldn't find what I wanted to knit. Personal style is really important to me. And I would say that my personal design aesthetic are things that are relatively unfussy, like kind of basics, but with really beautiful details. Detailing is, you know, my thing. Like I'm really into turning
00:07:55
Speaker
functional things of the garment so areas of shaping or you just kind of necessities of constructing a garment and turning it into a design feature and so
00:08:07
Speaker
When I started designing, I'm almost thinking about, okay, well, what would I like to wear? And what do people like me who not just knit for the pleasure of knitting, which is amazing, but also knit for the product of knitting and are looking for things that will fit in really well with the rest of their wardrobe, things that are really wearable, easy to style. Yeah, people who are really keen on building a handmade wardrobe.
00:08:35
Speaker
Okay. So like many of us, you start with yourself and then you branch out and say, okay, if people are like me, where are they likely to go with that idea? Okay. And how many patterns do you have now? I only have 19 patterns out there, which when you compare it to a lot of designers, it's quite a small amount. It's a lot of work, but it's a small amount because
00:09:03
Speaker
I was pretty prolific in releasing patterns initially. And then I started writing about design and then teaching about design. And this year I released my first pattern in like two, three years, I think. Yeah.
Teaching Knitting Design
00:09:20
Speaker
Okay. So how did you make the leap from designing to teaching? And what was the reason behind that?
00:09:31
Speaker
So when I started writing, when I started releasing patterns, I also started writing about knitting at the same time. My kind of plan was to write about topics that knitters wanted to learn about. So there's all kinds of things, finishing techniques, educational things that would almost support my patterns as well, things I could link to from my patterns that would help knitters.
00:09:55
Speaker
And it just moved organically from there because I'd get questions about design. I did this little mini series, I think it was like three posts where I talked about like designing, writing and publishing knitting patterns and kind of my process.
00:10:11
Speaker
and they were the most popular posts on my blog by far. Google loved them. People were always googling these terms and people would come to me and I knew why because when I was starting out as a knitting pattern designer, I've got all this experience as a commercial knitwear designer. I know how to
00:10:33
Speaker
design like flat patterns and pattern cutting and things like that but designing knitting patterns is very different and especially when you want to grade them the
00:10:45
Speaker
There just didn't seem to be huge amounts of information out there. I'd be kind of ferociously googling and nothing seemed to be what I was looking for. So often I would find things like designing patterns for yourself based on your own personal measurements, not necessarily how to design patterns for multiple measurements and sizes.
00:11:07
Speaker
There just didn't seem to be a lot and the things that were out there was just like little small aspects of the process but not covering the whole thing. So when that happened I thought I should really start sharing more about what I know about design. So I just slowly kind of added more topics around kind of knitting pattern design onto the blog. I love writing about it, I love talking about it, it's kind of my
00:11:33
Speaker
passion in life. So it was a joy for me to write about. And they just hit it off. And I found that more and more people were recommending me, directing people to my blog. And in 2019, I decided, OK, well, I'm going to just do this. This will be what my blog is about. So I stopped writing about all the other topics around knitting, and I just focused entirely on teaching about knitting pattern design.
00:11:59
Speaker
Okay, so 2019 was when that leap happened. Wonderful. Okay. And in that time, since then, have you found that knitting for yourself, the personal things that you want to knit that aren't designs, that it's giving you the freedom to do those things? Because sometimes designing can take over.
00:12:24
Speaker
100%. Yeah, I didn't knit a whole ton for myself whilst I was focusing on producing patterns all the time. And so for me, actually, I think it's really important for designers to make time to knit from other designers patterns. And me spending
00:12:47
Speaker
less time producing my own patterns actually gave me the opportunity to knit for fun a little bit more, even though knitting is always fun for me to be quite honest. But it has been nice to work from other people's patterns. It's nice to actually
00:13:03
Speaker
Sometimes I just want a mindless knit, right? I just want to be told what to do. I love rules. I love recipes. Tell me what to do and I'll follow it to the letter. And so actually knitting from other people's patterns is lovely for me as well. Yeah. And what do you gain? You say you really encourage that. What do you gain from it?
00:13:25
Speaker
For me, I think, you know, no knitter knows everything about knitting and no designer knows everything about designing. And so when I knit from other people's patterns almost every time, I would say probably every time I learn something new or I notice something that I really like about someone's pattern and think that is really well communicated or I really like how they formatted this and I'll think, okay, I'm going to try that in my next
00:13:55
Speaker
pattern that I write or I must remember to pass that on to my students because that's a really good example of how this design has done something. Same with constructions like I grew up on row and knitting patterns in the UK that was basically all you had available like throughout the sort of noughties it was all just flat seamed row and patterns and to be honest I love seaming controversially but
00:14:21
Speaker
it meant that my expertise is pretty flat. So you know I learned in uni about flat pattern cutting, we didn't really do a whole lot of seamless construction and so everything that I've learned about seamless construction is from knitting other people's patterns and like analyzing how things are put together. So I think designers can really
00:14:46
Speaker
kind of stall in their knowledge of design and if they stick to only doing what they know and it's really important to continue to challenge yourself to learn new techniques and yeah just see ways that it's almost nice to be on the other end because when you're a designer and you're writing patterns
00:15:06
Speaker
you really need to consider the user experience of what it's like to work from pattern and so it's lovely to be on the other end of that and analyze your own user experience working from someone else's pattern because it's just impossible to have that when you are the designer looking at your own pattern. Of course you know what you're communicating because you wrote it but he used to say that is clear to other people.
00:15:33
Speaker
Right. And of course, as a tech editor, that's where tech editors and testers come in, right? Is making sure that you've done it so that it makes sense to other people. But that valuable experience of doing the other person's work
00:15:52
Speaker
Like you said, seeing that different way to word it or that different way to construct something. There's so many brilliant designers out there that are approaching the same silhouettes from a totally new perspective. I can't imagine not knitting other people's stuff. Exactly. It just doesn't compute.
00:16:21
Speaker
But I hear the teacher coming out in you when you talk about that. I really do. Yeah. It's something that I do talk to my students about. I say.
00:16:35
Speaker
This isn't for everybody, but I generally advise, if possible, to write your pattern first and then knit the sample afterwards. I know that's difficult for a lot of people, but I personally find that to be so instructive because you almost become your first test knitter. You can knit from your own pattern and see where there are areas of confusion or areas where you need to add clarity or baby errors.
00:17:01
Speaker
And that in itself is just incredibly valuable and you get that insight before you even move on to test knitting or tech editing and all of that. It's just brilliant to be able to be on the other end of the pattern.
00:17:18
Speaker
I think especially when you're talking about sweater construction versus the smaller items. Yes, for a small item, it's easy just to... Well, my latest design that I've been working on right now, it was just a, oh, I can't wait to cast this on and get started. So guess what? I've ended up with two samples because the first sample wasn't quite right.
00:17:40
Speaker
Right? You don't want to do that with a sweater. You don't want to do that with a sweater. So yes, the sweater design that I've kind of been delaying putting time and effort into is definitely one where I'm trying to write the pattern first. And I think that's what's slowing me down because that's a new way of working. And I am a new designer myself, so it's kind of like
00:18:07
Speaker
Okay, how do I do this, right? What steps do I need to take? And I ended up like knitting a cowl for my gauge swatch because I didn't trust a gauge swatch, right? I think that's a great idea. So, yeah. And the cowl pattern will eventually be part of the pattern. And I will encourage people, hey, if you really want a good gauge swatch, knit this first.
00:18:35
Speaker
Love it. See, again, there's things like that that are a bit unconventional that other designers can work from your pattern and be like, hey, that's a really good idea. I love that. And they can start introducing ideas like that into their patterns. We all have so much kind of innovation to share with others. I love that.
00:18:58
Speaker
So we talked about when you decided to teach and why. Tell us more about the design school itself. Give me some background, give me some details that people can take away and say, oh, I really should take that class. What class do you offer? So I have one primary class that I teach.
00:19:22
Speaker
It's a very comprehensive program. When I initially launched it, I kind of released it as a bit of a 12 week course. So it's got seven modules. It's like nine hours of video in there, lots of demos.
00:19:41
Speaker
And it walks students through the process of designing a sweater right from the very beginning. So understanding the constructions available to you. I teach three different construction styles from the top down. And then, you know, coming up with your design ideas and how to
00:19:58
Speaker
ensure that your design ideas are viable in terms of, you know, implementing it into a gradable design. And then, yeah, I walked them through, you know, the spreadsheet process, grading, writing the pattern all the way through to testing it, getting it tech edited, and finally laying it out into a pattern that's ready for publication.
00:20:22
Speaker
So it's very, very comprehensive. It does sound very comprehensive. Is there any live interaction during the time period or is it strictly online? They can do it at their own pace.
00:20:35
Speaker
These days, I've switched over to a course that they can access at their own pace. So some students just whizz through it. Especially if they've got a lot of time where they really want to fill it with learning about design and do more of an intensive, they can take the course very quickly and just implement straight away. Some have very busy lives and they just drop in as and when. But because
00:21:03
Speaker
It's a complex subject and I know that my students will be working at different paces. A live element of the course is that I do a 16-minute Q&A every week and this Q&A is not time bound or anything like that. It's something that any of my students, no matter when they enrolled in Sweater Design School, can access.
00:21:25
Speaker
All of the questions are pre-submitted. I'm based in the UK. Lots of my students are overseas and so lives can be tricky in that regard because not everyone wants to get up super early in the morning or they're at work whilst I'm doing it. So all of the questions are pre-submitted and I answer them live. If there's any time at the end, I can answer questions whilst I'm still on the call.
00:21:51
Speaker
But I really prioritise ensuring that all of my students are able to have their questions answered. And those sessions are also recorded as well.
00:22:01
Speaker
They can either watch it back, we have a Facebook group where all the students can interact with one another, they can watch it back in the Facebook group, or for those who don't want to use Facebook or can't use Facebook for whatever reason, I also upload all of those sessions onto the course website. So that's our primary kind of live interaction element where students can get personalized help with their design. And then obviously,
00:22:26
Speaker
with the Facebook group, if they want to be part of it, then that's a great place to kind of share their work, get to know other students. And again, that's more of the live element. All of the rest of the materials are all pre-recorded. They come with loads of like PDFs and templates. I kind of set up a special spreadsheet for them to work within, which is really cool, if you're nerdy like me and really enjoy the spreadsheets. It's just really great seeing that light bulb turn on because
00:22:56
Speaker
Just having a structure for your spreadsheets in itself can be incredibly helpful when you're a new designer. So yeah, it's really cool.
Creative Challenges and Inspirations
00:23:04
Speaker
Well, and especially seeing as so many of the designers that I work with are so focused on the creative part of it that the technical, the writing, the doing the math is not their thing. And working in spreadsheets
00:23:24
Speaker
It's not intuitive, right? You have to be that nerdy person that wants to dig deep to figure out how do I make this work and work from one spreadsheet to the next and those types of things. So yeah, you're very right that having a little bit of hand holding with a spreadsheet can be a big deal for a lot of people.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I've worked with some students who've literally never used a spreadsheet before. And I can only imagine that it just must feel like super intimidating. So I do, yeah, I do a lot of demos, a lot of like kind of formula sharing that they can copy and paste and adjust to meet their needs. Because of what I find, and I'm like this anyway, like I love step by step, I love
00:24:19
Speaker
recipes and formulas and all of that like this is my personality type. I love guiding people through things step by step and what I find with my students is that if they can go through the process following you know adapting my instructions to their designs so it looks you know how they want it to be but they have this structure and skeleton to kind of hold the process together for them and
00:24:46
Speaker
their confidence in adapting it and adjusting it for different constructions, for example, or for men or for children, because I specifically teach women's wear design. It just soars, you know, that they're able to feel a lot more confident in their abilities to do it because a lot of my students are capable of probably figuring it out as well. There are elements where
00:25:12
Speaker
they could work it out, but so much of it is just being confident in a sort of process. And this is what it provides.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah. Believe it or not, in my past, one of the things I did was I taught people how to use their word processors, their spreadsheets. And at the time, it was all Microsoft products. It was Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and at the time, Microsoft Publisher. And I was working with real estate agents and mortgage lenders.
00:25:48
Speaker
Now, you think mortgage lenders, these are numbers people, they would understand spreadsheets. But no, I literally was teaching them how to find the formulas and which formulas worked for what they were doing. Totally kind of a crazy situation. But yeah, so I get the whole intimidation factor.
00:26:10
Speaker
And because I've been there, I've watched it with other people. So yeah, spreadsheets can be, I mean, word and publisher details were pretty easy for me to pass along, but when it came down to dealing with those formulas, that's a big part of it and understanding how those formulas are built and why this formula works and that one doesn't.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's like learning a new language, you know, it's, it's learning. It's like when you're writing knitting patterns, you have to become relatively fluent in that language, communicating with the spreadsheet. And, and it's very much been a trial and error process for me because I am one of those classically creative people. Um, and I love maths. I am not very good at it. I was very close to failing my maths A level, which is like,
00:27:07
Speaker
the exams you take when you're 18 in the UK. And I took maths probably very unwisely in hindsight at that age. I selected it. My teachers shouldn't have let me because I didn't do particularly well on my previous exams either. Anyway, I took it because I thought it was interesting. I didn't do particularly well at it. But for me,
00:27:31
Speaker
design is enough of a motivation for me to learn. And because I have the curiosity in it as well, like I do, I love logic and all of that, it was very much a kind of trial and error.
00:27:44
Speaker
thing for me. My first spreadsheets were terrible. It was so disorganized. I might as well have been writing it down on paper. Nothing was connected to anything. It was all just me filling in a form or something. It was so bad.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, it took, you know, several years of trial and error before I had it down pat, but now that I do, it's so adaptable and so flexible and I can really, it just, it saves so much time for me.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yes, yes, exactly. And figuring out where you have those permanent connections that you don't need to redo every time. I'm still modifying my template for the tech editing because every time I get a new pattern, there's something unique about it that changes what I need to do.
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah. But you know, to be fair, to be fair, yeah. I think that is gonna happen.
00:28:46
Speaker
I'm going to throw a question in here that came to me as I was rereading some of your later news, latest newsletters. You had one come out recently that I really, really liked. And it was the one about not searching for originality. Can you tell people that story and why that means something to you?
00:29:17
Speaker
I'll have to remember the story that I told because this is kind of a concept. You were talking about your senior year or your final year of university and how you kept working to find that next unique thing. Yeah. And how it was crushing your creativity. And I really, that was so inspiring to me. I've read it like three times. I'm glad, I'm glad.
00:29:45
Speaker
I when I was in university, I went from being the only knitter I knew to being surrounded by students. And they all were fabulous knitters and passionate about it. And I was intimidated. I felt I suddenly went
00:30:09
Speaker
from feeling like I'm a great knitter, like I'm a great designer, I've got great ideas to feeling like I, why would anyone notice me? Why would anyone take notice of my designs? What makes my designs any different from anyone else's? And so my final year of university, I went from designing things that felt like me, my design aesthetic, to designing things that were just so,
00:30:37
Speaker
out of the ordinary, so unusual, using kind of silhouettes and colours and patterns that I would never normally use. The finished pieces, if you look at them objectively, they were really cool, but they were not me. They weren't me. And I didn't feel connected to them. And if I was to go and show that work to a prospective employer,
00:31:06
Speaker
I, how would I, I wouldn't be able to live up to it. It was, it was kind of like I had had on this mask of like, this is me as a designer, but it wasn't true. It wasn't true to who I was. And, and I can only.
00:31:19
Speaker
connect it to how a lot of new knitting pattern designers or aspiring knitting pattern designers feel that you go on any kind of knitting platform, whether it's Ravelry or Etsy or Lovecraft, places where people are selling their patterns. And it's like, wow, there are hundreds of people doing this. What makes me special? Why would I stand out amongst these people? And I feel that way too. I feel that way too, for sure.
00:31:49
Speaker
But the reality is that knitters are not necessarily looking for something wildly original, they're not. People are looking for things that they love, they're looking for things that will make them comfortable, that will be a joy to knit, that is
00:32:10
Speaker
clear and easy to work from and you know I always bring up the example of like how many vanilla raglins can you find on Ravelry like there are there are probably dozens of pages of vanilla raglins if you search for them um and each of them will have sales there will be people
00:32:27
Speaker
making, you know, plenty of sales on these patterns. And it's because the designer has offered something of themselves. So they, you know, maybe the way that they write their patterns is particularly user friendly, or they have a certain method of doing it. And it might be that they have used a certain weight of yarn that people are like, I love knitting in this weight of yarn. So I want to choose that pattern over the next one. There are there are so many
00:32:55
Speaker
reasons why one knitter will choose a pattern over another and I don't want any designer to feel like they are not creative or original enough to design patterns that could be successful because there is so much more to success than having out there like wildly original designs.
00:33:20
Speaker
I love that. And it really touched home for me at just a moment when I needed to hear it the most, seriously. And like I said, it is one that really resonated for me. And so that's why I wanted to hear your perspective on it. So thank you very much for sharing that. You're so welcome.
00:33:45
Speaker
What kinds of things actually inspire your designs or where do you tell people to look for inspiration? So I tend to categorize inspiration into two kind of categories, one being literal inspiration and one being more sort of emotional inspiration. I'll explain what I mean by that. So literal inspiration is things that you can directly pull from.
00:34:12
Speaker
for your ideas. So it might be that you've seen a ready-to-wear sweater. When I say ready-to-wear, I mean like a sweater that you could find in the shops and you love the silhouette of it or you love the neckline shape or you love how they did the trim. Those are all kind of snapshots that you can draw into your design. It may also be
00:34:35
Speaker
And I love tiles I really love geometric tiles, because I feel like the. They can be really easily transformed into stitches and because they're so often they're so kind of linear and often tessellating as well, which is really helpful for repeating stitches and so I love tiles, they can be a big source of inspiration for me and any kind of.
00:35:02
Speaker
geometric design. I, like I said, I'm a designer who is not overly keen on fussy things. I can appreciate them from like an aesthetic point of view, but from, you know, a wearing point of view or designing point of view, it's not my style.
00:35:19
Speaker
So I'm always looking at just interesting details that I can pull from even things like woven fabrics. I find that woven fabrics for me can be very interesting if it's something woven on a loom or something like that. There are textural elements that you can pull into knitting and it will look so different because the medium is different. And I don't know, I think there is something very interesting about taking
00:35:47
Speaker
a totally different medium and then converting it into a knitted fabric and just seeing what happens. I also love taking existing stitches from stitch dictionaries
00:36:02
Speaker
And then just going wild with them like really just messing around with them seeing what you can do to kind of tap into maybe an inspiration piece that you've seen something you've put on your mood board or whatever and adapting them because that can be a really good starting point for new designers in particular, who don't necessarily feel like they want to come up with our own stitch.
00:36:22
Speaker
So yeah, those are the sort of areas that I would say are more like the literal inspiration. But then I also like to think about more the emotional side of it. And when I say emotional, I mean, what is the kind of mood that you're trying to create with this sweater? Like, who is it for? What
00:36:40
Speaker
would they wear when they're, what would they be doing when they're wearing it or what is their life like? Like for me, when I think about the emotional inspiration, I'm really inspired by people who make their clothes. I can think of a few people where I'm like, they make almost all of their clothes and they have amazing personal style and just that whole lifestyle around living relatively simply, making a lot of your stuff,
00:37:09
Speaker
having that kind of quiet, simple
00:37:13
Speaker
really meaningful life that can be a great source of inspiration because it just guides the overall feel of my designs. So I try to think about not just the kind of literal things that I can pull from but also the mood. So I've had students who their emotional inspiration is like the beach or they're not literally taking elements of the beach and sticking I don't know a sand dune on their sweater it's it's
00:37:40
Speaker
just that feeling. It's hard to explain, but I think you know it when you see it. I think I hear for you, for your design aesthetic, your emotional inspiration tends to be the cozy, the home life, that wrapping yourself with the warmth of life, right? That's how I hear you describing that. And it makes a lot of sense because I can hear it coming from you.
00:38:12
Speaker
You described your own aesthetic well enough for me to understand where that inspiration is coming from. I loved it. I have to tell you, I'm hearing the teacher in you over and over again. Coming from a background of teaching myself, I can hear the love that you have for it.
00:38:33
Speaker
in your voice. It's just amazing. So again, I want to thank you for being here because oh my gosh, this is wonderful. Tell us how you came up with the name Sister Mountain.
00:38:46
Speaker
This is a very unexciting story, I'm not gonna lie. My maiden name is Mountain, and it's a very unusual name. I've always, actually, when I was younger, I felt a little bit shy about my surname, but as a young adult, I've always loved my surname. And me and my sister would often jokingly refer to our parents as mother and father Mountain.
00:39:13
Speaker
And then when I was searching for a name, I could not come up with a name for ages for my design brand. It's when I was releasing patterns. And I was like, OK, I'm just going to use Sister Mountain. And I played around with it. I sent it to my sister, actually. I said, I think I'm going to call it Sister Mountain. She's like, yes, that's fine. So that's that's how it happened. There's no real meaning behind it, aside from that's maybe what my sister would refer to me as.
00:39:41
Speaker
I think it means more than you realize because the story behind calling your parents mother and father mountain that's got an emotional connection for you that maybe you're not as conscious of in your work you know but subconsciously it it ties into that warm cozy feel of your aesthetic more than you realize
00:40:06
Speaker
I also like to think there is a warmth to the name in the sense of that sisterly guidance kind of thing. Yeah, it's lovely. I kind of have that feeling when I see it. So it's nice to hear that that is truly the background of it.
Balancing Design and Teaching
00:40:31
Speaker
Have you ever thought that the designing or the teaching just was too much that it was time to give up? Oh, many times, many times. Designing as many people who have tried it, as you may know, it's hard. It's super hard. It's a lot of work for not much pay.
00:40:54
Speaker
And so if you are trying to do it as a career, as your full-time thing, I mean, I remember they released some statistics on Ravelry like a few years ago now, but like when you look at the statistics, they are sobering. Like very few designers make anything close to a livable wage from their designs. And so that can be very discouraging. I'm generally someone who is
00:41:23
Speaker
sort of optimist and I would be like wow I'll make it work and I think actually that has um that can work in my favour because I'm just sort of like I guess a bit scrappy like I'll figure something out um but yeah there are times where I was like this this isn't working and um I should probably just
00:41:48
Speaker
you know, go find a job that will actually allow me to one day buy a house or something. But what I realized is that most knitting pattern designers who work in the knitting industry also have other income streams. And it just so happened that I love teaching. And so adding that to my wares that I sell actually
00:42:12
Speaker
allowed me to make this my full-time thing, like this is what I do and I am able to live off it and it's fabulous, like I love it. But then also along with that I am someone who has a huge amount of imposter syndrome and frequently I feel the responsibility of teaching all these amazing students and
00:42:37
Speaker
gosh, I hope I'm doing a good job, right? And so it can be stressful for someone like me who is very sensitive, who really just wants to do the best possible job for their students. Yeah, I found that I was maybe working too much. And just, I guess I just really wanted to
00:43:01
Speaker
to give people what they deserved. I felt that they deserved. But no, in hindsight, I realized my capacity and I made some changes to the way that I run my business. I used to do
00:43:16
Speaker
a lot of things live, not the classes, but I did a lot more promotional live stuff. And I've transitioned away from that because it meant that I would have to work in the evenings doing workshops and things that I realistically now, you know, I've got a two year old, I'm exhausted at the end of the day, I just can't stay up to the evenings.
00:43:38
Speaker
to host master classes. It's just not practical for me and knowing my overwhelm and energy levels that that causes, it's just not practical. So I've made adjustments to my business and it's fabulous. Like I've
00:43:52
Speaker
been able to achieve the balance that I've always dreamed of. It's, you know, balance is one of those things that is never fully imbalanced. It goes one way or the other. But I feel a lot. This is the best job I've ever had, basically. I feel I've managed to find
00:44:10
Speaker
my flow with it and I've given myself accommodations that I need that suit my personality type. Your personality, your family, where you're at in life. It has to be a factor. It's funny you mentioned the imposter syndrome I just recently accidentally released early.
00:44:35
Speaker
My experience with imposter syndrome on the podcast. Interesting. I was getting ready to schedule it for the day it was supposed to release and accidentally hit the publish instead of the calendar. I've done that with emails.
00:44:55
Speaker
Yeah. So it was out a whole week early, guys. I'm sure people were past me. I think we all suffer from it at some point in our careers.
00:45:09
Speaker
And a big decision has to be made as to, do you want this to be a full-time income? And are you capable of putting the time into it to make it such? Because it doesn't happen by itself. It just doesn't. And those who have a full-time income in this field are doing it because they've put the work in.
00:45:36
Speaker
Exactly. It's a long game. That's why I tell my students it's you cannot expect to be instantly successful or make even a profit really at first. It's a long game and every pattern that you release actually helps your previous patterns to sell and so it's just a matter of building up that catalogue of patterns that you've got and building your community of people who know your patterns and really love what you do.
00:46:09
Speaker
A little gem of advice there that you have to release on a regular basis for the growth to happen because I've seen that from others as well. And when I was getting started in the tech editing and stuff and my previous podcast partner had convinced me to create my first pattern, it was like, okay, how do I make this work? Right. And.
00:46:28
Speaker
That's, I think, a really
00:46:39
Speaker
It's been two years since I've released a pattern, and I've got one out there. I do have three coming. I had a couple that were supposed to release last year, and I got a total imposter syndrome kind of problem with it. But they're starting to feel right now, and so they will come out this fall. But that imposter syndrome, it gets you.
00:47:06
Speaker
I think for me that's when it's time. I don't think it goes away. You've just got to learn what to tell yourself in those moments. And in those moments I remind myself of what my students have been able to achieve. And whether I can see it in that moment or not,
00:47:27
Speaker
I'm a good teacher and I just have to remind myself that and that it's something that is needed in the world. It's for me going back and reading the emails that I've received from the clients that have said
00:47:42
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I didn't even have a clue how much was missing until you touched my pattern. Those kinds of emails, when I get really bad, I dig into those and I read those through and it helps me push forward. So find that thing, whatever it is, right? So what is coming up? What's waiting in the wings?
00:48:13
Speaker
What's going to be new? Like I said, I've made some adjustments to my business on the back end that allows me to not spend as much of my week on promotional marketing related stuff.
Future Plans and Contact Information
00:48:33
Speaker
And so I've got a whole day every week dedicated design now, which is amazing.
00:48:41
Speaker
I'm excited. So I've had, gosh, I've had patterns in the works for like three or four years now that still are not out there because they're self-published, they're not on a deadline and so therefore I kind of fit them in amongst my other deadlines. So I'm really excited to get those out there and I know that now I've got this dedicated day every week, I'll start being able to make
00:49:08
Speaker
like consistent progress which very excited about that so it's like four things four things that I'm currently working on um one of them is an old pattern that's been resized I just I literally just need to re-photograph it on a new model um and that's all it's waiting for um and has been waiting for for about a year now so all of these things will finally
00:49:30
Speaker
be off my to-do list, which I'm delighted about. And then also just more writing, more stuff for the blog. I love writing about design. So again, I've set aside one day a week to just really focus on that, which I'm very excited about. You know, you make me feel so much better.
00:49:50
Speaker
You really do because the idea that this pattern has been waiting for one little piece and that's kind of where I've been with the ones that I had planned on releasing last year. They've been waiting for me and for me it was the layout. Trying to make the layout look the way I wanted it to and I finally got it there.
00:50:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good feeling when it finally clicked. Yeah, it did. So, but it's nice to know others suffer the same problems. Oh, terribly. It really does. It helps us all to know that we're in the same boat, right? Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
All right, so you do have some new patterns coming out so we can probably watch your Instagram and they'll be announced when they're released. I am not very active on Instagram whatsoever. I'm very social media phobic. So I do have an Instagram, but it's not been posted on for a couple of years.
00:50:52
Speaker
The best way to find out will be via my email. I'm a big emailer. So if you get on my email list, then you will certainly hear about it.
00:51:03
Speaker
Oh, I can't wait. I'm looking forward to it because I am on your email list. One parting thing too. Well, two last questions here is what is your biggest piece of advice to someone who's thinking about getting started or is just getting started as a designer? Okay. I would say.
00:51:31
Speaker
The best thing you can do is figure out what you love knitting, what you're really comfortable knitting, whether it be hats or socks or shawls. Try to go for an accessory. And it should be something that you're very comfortable with the construction of because that is the key. A lot of people don't realize this, but if you understand the construction of a particular item,
00:51:56
Speaker
then a lot of the work is done for you. You're essentially just plugging in some numbers and measurements. So working with a construction that you're very familiar with, a pattern category that you're really familiar with, is an excellent place to start. And then also start simple.
00:52:12
Speaker
It kind of goes back to this concept around not feeling like you have to be super, super, super original. Do something simple. It's all about building your confidence with that first pattern. So for me, I designed a cabled hat. I love cables. I love hats.
00:52:30
Speaker
dead easy. And it was a great opportunity to try my hand at the whole process. And so for a new designer, if you've never released a pattern before, choose something small, simple, a construction that you're really familiar with, and you will be
00:52:46
Speaker
amazed by what a confidence boost that will be for you. And quite often that is what a new designer needs because how many aspiring designers have started trying to design something really complex and just never finished it because it's almost an impossible task when you don't have that level of experience backing you up. So this will set you up for success.
00:53:12
Speaker
Thank you. That's lovely. And last but not least, please tell our listeners where they can find you and especially how can they get on your email list? Okay. So you can find me at sistermountain.com. Just, you know, like a mountain, like an actual mountain. Um, so that sistermountain.com and
00:53:35
Speaker
To get on my email list, you can sign up to watch my free workshop. It's a free on-demand one. You'll see it linked throughout my site. If you have an interest in knitting pattern design, it will probably be quite interesting to you anyway, but as an aside from that, you will also be enrolled on my email list and receive my weekly blog posts as a sort of side effect of enrolling in that workshop.
00:54:01
Speaker
Wonderful. Excellent. I will have links to that in the show notes. So if you don't want to remember how to type in Sister Mountain, just go to arcticedits.com and the show notes will be right there. Or you can sign up for my email and get the show notes in your inbox every time I release a new podcast. Claire, it's been an absolute
00:54:27
Speaker
joy to meet with you. Your enthusiasm is just almost overwhelming. It's so wonderful. I love it. I absolutely love it. And I'm so thrilled to have finally met you face to face. It's just, it's really, it has, you've been on my list of people to contact for a long time. And with my health situations last year, it got put off because I refused to let it happen unless I was here.
00:54:58
Speaker
Excellent. I'm glad that we were able to do this. All right. Well, thank you very much. And we'll talk to you again soon, I hope. Sure. Absolutely. Please join me next time when I share ideas and insights into creativity.
00:55:22
Speaker
Don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you listen and join the conversation in our Ravelry or Facebook groups. For technical editing, find Lisa at arcticedits.com and Nikki at handknitsandyuga.com.