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Episode 45: Eli Saetnan
96 Plays11 months ago
I talked with Eli Saetnan, a knitter and designer that devotes her knitting to charity.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Host
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to Craft, Design, Edit, Sleep, Repeat. I'm your host, Lisa Conway. Welcome to my world where we try to understand the business of knit and crochet design.
00:00:38
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. Today, I
Meet Ellie Sutton: Knit and Crochet Designer
00:00:41
Speaker
am thrilled to be meeting and introducing to you Ellie Sutton from the UK. She's from the Liverpool area, and I'm really excited to talk to her and hear all about her and her experiences designing for the life cycle for AIDS. Yes, let's tell everybody about that.
00:01:05
Speaker
So, Ellie, first, how did you decide to get into designing? Was it strictly for lifecycle or was there more to the story? I guess that the lifecycle was the sort of impetus that pushed me over the edge or that that sounds wrong, but kind of got me to actually jump in and do it. I mean, I've tinkered with designs for years.
00:01:35
Speaker
kind of taking a pattern and then tweaking it to my own designs or making my own designs for sort of one off things that I've knitted just for fun. And I guess I never really thought that I was, you know, I had the skill to write down. And over the past few years when I've made up my own patterns for things,
00:01:59
Speaker
I've actually sort of made myself write down what I was doing only for the sake of like when you knit one sock, you better write down what you've done so you can knit the second one. And then I thought the step for writing it down for myself to writing it down for someone else was probably not that big. So I guess I reached the stage where I thought I had enough experience of seeing what a good pattern looks like to kind of jump in and have a go at doing my own and then
00:02:29
Speaker
The AIDS lifecycle thing was kind of the impetus to do it as I'm, I'm knitting and selling things for the charity to fundraise for the charity. I thought if I make a pattern and sell, that's another strand where, you know, I just couldn't keep up with knitting anymore. But, you know, for as much as I would like to, but a pattern can just sit there. And if people buy it, wonderful.
00:02:53
Speaker
Wonderful. I love that.
What is the AIDS Lifecycle Ride?
00:02:56
Speaker
And tell us more about AIDS life cycle and how you got involved in it and what it does and how it works. So AIDS life cycle is a 545 mile charity bike ride cycling from San Francisco to Los Angeles. And it's all to raise money for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
00:03:23
Speaker
and the Los Angeles LGBT Center. They are wonderful charities who support the LGBTQ plus community, but in particular, anyone living with or at risk of HIV and AIDS. And so this ride has been going for quite a long time. I think the first AIDS ride was in 94 or something.
00:03:50
Speaker
So it's a longstanding charity. It's been going for a long time. Um, I got sucked in by my aunt who had done the ride a few times. And in 2005, she dragged me in to do it. Um, and then I've kind of kept coming back. Every time I do the ride, I say, this is so hard. This is the last time I'm doing it. And then a few years go by and you're like, actually,
00:04:20
Speaker
Let's do it one more time. So here I am for my fourth time coming back to do the ride. And I think what brings me back each time is, one is that the wonderful charities and the work they do is really important. And I do want to support that. And the other is the actual ride itself is such a wonderful community to be part of. Even from a distance, I can't be there on the training rides and things because I'm a long way away.
00:04:51
Speaker
It's such a supportive community. People refer to it as a love bubble and it really is. So I think that's partly also what brings me back every now and again. So you fly all the way to California to participate in a 545 mile ride. I know
Journey to California for the AIDS Lifecycle Ride
00:05:08
Speaker
that sounds ridiculous, but that's what I do. Do you bring the bike with you or do you get a bike when you get there? I always have been bringing my bike with me. Um,
00:05:19
Speaker
Just for the sake of that's a long distance to do on a bike you don't know. Yes. So I bring the bike that I've done all the training on that I'm familiar with. Wow. That's incredible. I know there are other rides because
00:05:36
Speaker
Yarn Harlett, and I'm blanking on her name, does one in Canada every year. It has been majorly involved in it. So when I heard about the one in California, I was like, oh, this is really cool. It's in the US. It's helping people closer to home.
00:05:55
Speaker
not close to home because I'm still not that close to California. I'm kind of on that side, but I'm in Alaska. So, you know, it is still a ways away and I would still have to actually fly to get there. And I haven't ridden a bike in 40 years. So, you know, still time. And also the, the event is, you know, that there's two and a half thousand cyclists or give or take a few. Um,
00:06:24
Speaker
that do the ride, but then there's hundreds of volunteers as well that make the ride happen. The people who lug your bags on and off the trucks, the people who set up camp and take down camp and hand out food and all the rest stops and all that. So there's opportunities for people to volunteer with or without a bike.
00:06:46
Speaker
Well, and I volunteered in other ways by supporting the designers that design patterns for it. For example, I do free tech editing. If you are doing your pattern and the proceeds from that pattern are all going to go to a particular charity, I'm happy to edit that for free because that is a way I can support that charity. And I have done that a couple of times for the AIDS life cycle in California.
00:07:15
Speaker
That is another little way that I can support. It is little, really, in the long run, but it is a good start. That's what I've done for Gary in the past, has helped him with the designers that were supporting his knit-alongs by doing the tech editing for free and that sort of thing.
00:07:45
Speaker
But yeah, it's just one little way I can help from this far away. And every little helps, I think. And I guess that's why I kind of picked up the knitting and the bike ride is an outlet for all the knitting that I would be doing anyway. But it's a chance to put that skill to use in some way.
00:08:12
Speaker
and to make it do something good. Yes, yes. And
Designing for Charity: Knitting Patterns and Sales
00:08:17
Speaker
I find it very interesting that you do it for a charity on the other side of the world. I love that. I do have family in California. So my mum grew up in California. My aunt, like I said, she did the ride several times. She used to live in the Bay Area. So
00:08:36
Speaker
I do have a family connection. It's not just out of the blue that I fly over to California. But still, it's lovely. So what kinds of knitting do you do? You said you've sold the knitting itself as well as creating the patterns. What kinds of items have you done? So it's mostly accessories just because they're quicker to knit. So lots of socks, some hats, some mittens.
00:09:05
Speaker
Um, the other thing that I knitted loads of, and I would be scared to count how many was, um, Christmas baubles. Um, so that turned out to be a really good way of, of, you know, making something that is a quick knit, but it's customizable, infinitely customizable. So, um, lots of friends and family and acquaintances and friends of friends have kind of sent me requests for.
00:09:33
Speaker
particular designs for a Christmas bauble and I've knitted up, um, you know, just worn off unique Christmas baubles and sent them around the world. How lovely. I like that idea. And what kinds of things are you actually designing? Are any of your Christmas bauble bauble designs a part of that? No. So, so the Christmas baubles, they were like the basic, um, template Christmas bauble is a, um,
00:10:02
Speaker
Arnon Carlos design, and then I just put my own colour work on top of their kind of blank canvas. So I didn't feel like that was one that I could take ownership of in a sense. So what the patterns that I did design were sock patterns. That's one where over the years I've kind of taken lots of different sock
00:10:29
Speaker
you know, in terms of the stitch counts and heel designs and that kind of stuff and tweak them to be the kind of sock that I wanted to knit. So I kind of felt like this is actually my sock now and that sock then becomes a blank canvas to put all kinds of color work on. And so I made my own color work design on my sock template and then wrote that up as a knitting pattern. So that's how I kind of got the pattern design going.
00:10:58
Speaker
And how many do you have available now? And where are they available? So there's two sock patterns and one fingerless mittens pattern and a washcloth. They are on Ravelry and they are on my Ko-fi page.
00:11:16
Speaker
So people can find me on either of those or, yeah. Okay. Well, we'll make sure to get links for those things so that, uh, people can find those patterns and help support the charities because I think that's, that's what a wonderful way to do it. Um, what kind of designs, obviously that's not the only thing you knit. Do you, do you knit other people's designs and if so, what do you like to knit?
00:11:46
Speaker
And I knit loads of other people's designs because I'm constantly knitting things. I guess the sort of common denominator is I typically knit colorwork, stranded colorwork. I think that's the thing that kind of I get most excited about. But I've also done some sort of cable knit hats and things like that, lace shawls. Basically, if people want me to knit something,
00:12:17
Speaker
I'm not difficult to ask. So yeah. You're not one of those that has to look and say, are you knit worthy then? In a sense, I don't knit for people if they haven't asked me to. But if people kind of ask me to knit them something, and I think these are people who actually know what goes into that process, then yeah, I'll be happy to knit people's stuff. I mean, I'm knitting all the time anyway.
00:12:47
Speaker
give it away to someone, otherwise my house would just be full of stuff. I know the feeling. My scarf box is kind of over my scarf shawl box is starting to overflow a little bit. But I still want more. What can I say? What is what is the name of your shop on Ravelry? So I
00:13:17
Speaker
I think I've now synchronized all of my platforms so that I'm Dr. Cetnan everywhere. Dr. Cetnan. Okay. Explain the doctor. I have a PhD. Okay. So when I first set up social media page or something years ago, I thought, Hey, I've got a PhD. I'm Dr. Cetnan. I'm one of, as far as I know, there's three Dr. Cetnan's in the world.
00:13:43
Speaker
So I thought I'd get in there and corner the market as the doctor said them. And what area do you have your PhD in? It's in biology. So ecology, that was what I did. Okay. And do you still work in the field or is that in the past? I did work in the field for quite a while and then I ended up in, I'm still in university, still in an academic role, but I am
00:14:13
Speaker
now teach university lectures about university teaching. So I work with lectures from and professors from across all disciplines. Oh wow, interesting. I started out with a career in education, but I was with children and then grew into working more with adults and that sort of thing. So I kind of went
00:14:41
Speaker
in a similar fashion, but from a different starting point. I don't feel uncomfortable teaching adults at all. I find it much easier to teach adults in many ways. In a lot of ways. They're generally fairly self-motivated and they know what they want and they can tell you when they need things or want things. They're generally there because they want to be.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Although I do like working with the little, little kids. When I did teach kids, it was the three to six year olds that was my main focus.
Ellie's Academic Role and Teaching Philosophy
00:15:28
Speaker
I loved that group because everything they learn, it's just like, amazing.
00:15:39
Speaker
I have to say that the people I work with now, they're not always there because they want to be, they're there because there's a university requirement for them to do this course. But we do generally win them over and they're generally quite excited about what they learn, you know, as we go through the course. Well, at some point, they've made the choice that they want to teach.
00:16:02
Speaker
And therefore, learning about teaching becomes a valuable thing for them. Even if initially they think, oh, I can do this. They start learning things and they go, oh, yeah, this is valuable. Yeah. And, you know, once you get a year or two under your belt, you start to notice things that aren't going the way you thought they would go. And so
00:16:27
Speaker
through our courses is a chance to sort of unpick why that happened and what alternative approaches there might be. I love that. That sounds like my kind of school. I love those kinds of things where you pick apart the problems and find the solutions. That's I think where I excel in my
00:16:54
Speaker
Attempts to learn things is is okay. Why did this go wrong? Not okay. This is wrong, but why did this go wrong and When I teach and I will say that I've raised three kids in a homeschool setting Very successfully if I do say so myself and I I really like to work on Why
00:17:22
Speaker
or how, you know, not just learning facts, but well, why did that work? And why should is knowing this going to be valuable for you and cultivating the desire to learn more is what I hope I did. Yeah, I think that's the sort of for whatever you're teaching or whatever kind of educational role you're in,
00:17:52
Speaker
You know, it's not about what you know, it's about the curiosity that you spark. It's the questions that you raise. Because your students are always going to learn things that you don't know. That's the aim is for the students to go beyond where you were. My 20 year olds still say what if. They still love that what if game. And that's something most kids lose by the time they're seven or eight and abstract thinking.
00:18:22
Speaker
starts to take over a little bit. Maybe just a little older than that because abstract thinking plays into the what if, but they still will sit down. What if so and so did this? They still do that, which I love because that means they're looking at their world from a
00:18:48
Speaker
viewpoint of what are the problems? What if we did this, would it fix it? Right. I love that.
Finding Inspiration in Color for Designs
00:19:01
Speaker
What types of things inspire your color work? Um, I'd say just color in general. I just love color. Um, and I love the way that colors
00:19:15
Speaker
change depending on what other colors are around it. So I guess it's the same for like colorwork knitting and I've dabbled in a bit of quilting as well of just you know you have a simple pattern of like two or three colors and then you swap one color out and it looks completely different. So it's those kind of things but I guess in terms of where I then draw the colors that I even draw them to that
00:19:44
Speaker
autumnal colours, you know, in nature, that that's kind of where I see colours that I really enjoy and that I want to play with. Those are my favourite colours. But it really is just kind of playing with combinations and sometimes putting together combinations of colours that maybe, you know, you wouldn't think to put together and then seeing what happens.
00:20:12
Speaker
So I guess a bit like you said with, you know, the way you teach your kids, what if? Yeah. What if, what if I do this instead of that? Yes. Yeah. What if you throw that weird purple in with all the other colors and you go, Oh, that looks interesting. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. For you, it's more the color rather than the shape of the design. Yeah. My designs that I make tend to be sort of fairly simple geometric designs, but then it's about that blending of color.
00:20:42
Speaker
that I find interesting or enjoyable when I'm dabbling or sketching. I don't know that I have really got a strong sense of confidence
00:20:59
Speaker
dealing with color changes. That's not something I have learned to play with in my life the way some people have. I love the fact that that is kind of your basis. What does this color and this color do together? How does I see them in this pattern that is more important than the pattern itself? Yeah. And interestingly, my husband is colorblind.
00:21:27
Speaker
And I quite often turn to him to check colors. Um, I guess from the way he sees things, he sees shades rather than color. So sometimes I'll like pick two colors and I think, Oh, they, they'd look cool together. And then I show them to my husband is like, are they different? They look like the same color to me. And if I override that and I said, Oh, no, no, the work and I start knitting it up. And then I realized, no, the contrast isn't enough. You can't see them. So, um,
00:21:57
Speaker
I play with color, I pick weird combinations and then I show it to my husband and he either goes thumbs up or thumbs down, but depending on what I'm trying to achieve.
00:22:06
Speaker
He's your black and white photography. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You don't have to go through the process of taking the photo and turning it to black and white. You just have to hold it up for your husband. I love that. That's great. My father-in-law was colorblind, so I know what that means. I know what that's like. My husband is good at it, but although he's getting worse.
00:22:35
Speaker
His vision is getting worse. He's got glaucoma. So it's kind of been a struggle this last year. Anyway, um, what's coming up? Do you have any new designs that you're working on or what are your plans? It sounds like you're getting ready to come for the life cycle this year. Yeah. I booked my flights yesterday. So yeah, that that's now.
00:23:03
Speaker
scarily close, even though we're a few months away. I'm obviously still knitting and all of this, um, knitting fundraising stuff, you know, I've, I've put out there for people to commission me to knit things for them. So I have a sort of steady stream of things that people ask me to knit. So I, I've got a list, current running list of things to make up. So that's kind of taking,
00:23:33
Speaker
little bit of priority over making new pattern designs myself. You know, it's finding the time for all of this. So I don't have a particular pattern kind of nearly ready to go or on the cards ready to go, but there's always kind of stuff mulling in the back of my mind that... Well, and one of those commissions could actually end up inspiring a pattern. You never know. Yeah. I mean, people ask me to make
00:24:01
Speaker
So this latest one that I'm a pair of socks, I'm knitting a friend asked me, could I make a pair of socks, blue socks with a sort of black cap theme? And I said, okay, yeah, I can do that. So I've, I've mucked around and tried a few different things for pattern. But then, although the sock template is still my sock template, you know, the color work is
00:24:26
Speaker
you know, the kind of silhouettes of cats that I've found on the internet, the kind of charts that I've. And so it becomes, well, how much is it my design and how much is it a mismatch of other people's charts? And, you know, I don't want to take credit for other people working out a nice chart. So.
00:24:46
Speaker
I kind of have to see. You do have to be careful of copyright in those situations. Exactly. Yeah, I get that completely. But when you've got a case where somebody wants a pair of blue and red socks, you could take that opportunity to come up with something that you could then market. That's kind of where I was thinking in that. Yeah, so there might still be. Yeah. But you've got a waiting list is wonderful.
00:25:16
Speaker
I do, yeah, my aunt and uncle sent me a huge box of yarn as a Christmas present, but the Christmas present was for me to knit things for my brother, sister-in-law, my husband and me.
00:25:34
Speaker
I'm quite happy with those kind of presents. Oh, I love it. And when is the ride this year? So it's the
Upcoming AIDS Lifecycle Ride and Participation
00:25:48
Speaker
first week of June. Okay.
00:25:52
Speaker
Okay. And there's probably plenty of time for people to still get into volunteer positions for the cycle or even participate in the ride itself at this point.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, if you guys are interested, it is really a good cause. And I do know that the money goes to wonderful, wonderful places that are really worth supporting. So that's great. I realize that you don't count yourself as a totally experienced designer, but would you have any advice for someone that's thinking about getting into designing?
00:26:39
Speaker
My usual approach to things is to go, how hard can it be? And then realize actually it's more complicated than I thought, but what sort of, I guess my process was I started practicing writing things down for myself in a way that I could then pick up and knit the other sock or the other mitten, you know, months later. Um, and that was a way of practicing how to write down
00:27:07
Speaker
knitting instructions in a way that could be replicated. And the other thing I have done is I've paid much more attention to how other people write down kind of basic instructions for things and seeing, you know, different designers write things differently. Different countries have different ways of doing things. So what I've noticed is Norwegian knitting patterns are often very minimal.
00:27:37
Speaker
Um, I listened to your podcast a while back about kind of suggestions for good pattern, um, writing and about being very explicit and detailed in how you write instructions and looking at typical Norwegian knitting patterns. They just assume that you know how to knit in the round or knit a heel or do any of these things. And so often the pattern is sort of very minimal and it's really just the color chart that you're getting. So.
00:28:07
Speaker
I hope that my knitting patterns have ended up somewhere in between those two extremes, but not so minimal that people can't follow them. Do remember that because they're for charity, I can take it at them for free and that can help. That would be wonderful. Thank you. I'm more than happy to do that because like I said, for a charity is good, especially for a charity that I know that the money really does go to places where it helps.
00:28:34
Speaker
I am thrilled to be able to support in that way. So I'm happy to feel free anytime. But yes, I think with like Norwegian patterns, one of the reasons you find they're very minimal is because they still teach knitting in the schools. I guess so. I mean, it's been a while since I was in school myself, but I certainly we did knitting in school when I was in primary school.
00:29:03
Speaker
At least the last I've heard, they still did. I'd have to double check. I've got a friend that lives there, so I'll have to double check if that's still the case. But I think when the culture is based on the idea that everyone should learn, they don't feel the need to teach the new adult knitter the way the world has become.
00:29:28
Speaker
the generally in the world, we are seeing adults coming to knitting for the first time because they haven't had that family or educational support in their childhood. And so they're, they're discovering it now. And so patterns have to be written differently. The other thing that's changed that is the fact that we're no longer getting patterns
00:29:57
Speaker
primarily from a print source, magazines or printed leaflets that you pick up in the yarn store, things like that, where they were concerned about the amount of space that the pattern was going to take because they had the printing costs and the paper costs and all of those things. So we have the luxury
00:30:18
Speaker
of including better tutorials within that PDF. And if they want to print any of it, they don't necessarily have to print stuff that they don't need. And so that kind of changes the way we view writing patterns today versus in the past. Who cares if the pattern, and I'm going to
00:30:47
Speaker
laughingly use a friend's recent release is 42 pages long because of the tutorials included. Those tutorials are critical to completing the end project because so many of the things were not typically used techniques. Yeah, 42 pages for a shawl pattern.
00:31:16
Speaker
Yeah, I own it. I'm working on it slowly. It's a double knitted shawl that every stripe is a different technique from lace to
00:31:32
Speaker
double knitted bubbles and yeah it's it's every section has its own tutorials connected to it it's it's crazy but you know we have the luxury of doing that today
00:31:49
Speaker
20 years ago when it was still all print, we really couldn't do that as easily. So it makes a difference.
Connect with Ellie Sutton Online
00:32:00
Speaker
So last but not least, you've mentioned a little bit where you can be found, but I'd like to be more explicit. Where can people find you? Where can they follow you? Where can they contact you if they want to get on your waiting list?
00:32:18
Speaker
Um, so find me on, on Instagram. That's where I post everything knitting, where we're cycling related and other sorts of things. So, um, just look for Dr. Seton on Instagram and, uh, you'll find me. And is it doctor spelled out D O C T O R.
00:32:36
Speaker
Nope, DR. And we'll have the spelling of her name in our show notes. You'll probably even see it on the title of the show because it is a unique name. I actually, I honestly, in my head, Ellie kept saying Eli. That's not unusual. And you know, it's around the world. It's pronounced Eli or Ellie, depending on
00:33:05
Speaker
the culture it comes from. I think it's very cultural. And in the United States, E-L-I is definitely Eli. I've never seen an L-A spelled in that manner here, but that doesn't mean I was right. That's why the very first thing I did, people was ask her how to pronounce her name. I'm quite used to people getting it wrong, so I'm very impressed that you got it right.
00:33:36
Speaker
Well, Ellie, I can't thank you enough for joining me today. This has probably been one of our shortest interviews. Is there anything else you can think of you'd like to share about what you do, how you do it, and what you can offer for support for this wonderful cause? What I do is just,
00:34:03
Speaker
incessantly knitting, I think is what I do. Um, but if people find me on Instagram or find my Ko-fi page, that's where you can commission me to knit something unique for yourself or just follow me and see the kind of things I make or buy things that I already have made up if you're, you know, if you like what you see. Um, so yeah, I'm always open for, um,
00:34:33
Speaker
Well, I'm always open for requests. It doesn't necessarily mean that I always accept all of the knitting requests if they are too far fetched. But, um, you know, if people contact me and say, can you do something, you know, then I will look at it and see what I can do and.
00:34:51
Speaker
certainly give it a go. All right, Ellie, thank you so much. I really appreciate again that you've taken the time to join us and want to let our listeners know that if you have any interest in supporting the AIDS life cycle, there's probably
00:35:08
Speaker
I will have links for the charity in the show notes. So please feel free to reach out and offer your assistance or your support in a financial way. So thank you again. And thank you very much for having me on. I loved it.
00:35:31
Speaker
Join
Sneak Peek: Next Episode on Knitting Supplies
00:35:32
Speaker
me next time when I take a deep dive into your supply list and what should or should not be there.
00:35:56
Speaker
For show notes or knit tech editing and related services, please visit my website at arcticedits.com.