Artists at Work Series: Interview with Miriam Felton

Our third Artist at Work interview is with Knitwear Designer Miriam Felton. Miriam began her knitting journey in high school and she has been writing about her patterns and projects through her blog, MimKnits, since 2004. Miriam has had her patterns published in Knit Picks, Interweave Press, through small yarn companies, and through self-publication. Shivaya Naturals is thrilled that Miriam has chosen to design a pattern for our upcoming Taste of Shivaya yarn club for 2009. Miriam's talents are well known in the knitting world, and we sat down to ask her about her designs, and the inspiration that she gathers in order to create them. We hope you enjoy.

Tell us a little bit about your life as a knitter

I started knitting as a way to make more wearable things. I had crocheted for about 8 years, but was bored with the limits of that medium. I wanted to make a smooth looking fabric and sweaters that you didn't need a forklift to carry around. I also had a great desire to make socks, but couldn't conceive of a way to make a comfortable pair with crochet, so I asked my sister to teach me to knit. She cast on for me (a cable cast on as I recall), and taught me a knit stitch. The rest I was too impatient to learn from her, so I taught myself with books.

The magical thing about knitting for me is that it has infinite possibility. I could turn any string-like substance into something else.
ANYTHING else. Stitches can be combined in a new way to make a stitch pattern you've never seen before. I am also completely smitten with texture in knitting. The way well-placed increases and decreases can shift simple stockinette to be a flowing, organic mass of stitches never ceases to amuse me.

What inspired you to become a knitwear designer?

I have been making this up as I go along from the start. I got 3" into that first garter stitch scarf before I devised a striping pattern for the rest of it, including instructions for myself to make the ends match. And when I noticed that the yarn colors crossed over their stripes, I alternated the side on which I switched yarns so that it wouldn't have a right or wrong side.

The "designing for other people" aspect came in when I had designed a sock (Razor Shell, I believe -
http://mimknits.com/shop/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=65&products_id=190)
and some blog readers wanted the pattern, so I wrote it out and posted it for free.

Tell us a little bit about the process that you go through when designing your patterns?

I get my inspiration from a number of sources, but then I generally sit down and sketch out the design details, proportions, notes about possible gauges, and then I chart it up, swatch to find a good fabric and start knitting. I tweak the details as I go, finding what does and doesn't actually work, and then I wash, block, write the pattern and photograph the piece. Then it goes out to my tech editor and then a test knitter if needed.

As an artist, what do you look to for inspiration and motivation?

I get inspiration from a lot of places. Sometimes I am inspired by nature (like the bare branches of a winter tree against the sky), or sometimes I will take a photograph or have an experience that evokes a certain feeling and I try to recreate that feeling in a piece of knitting. Often times a bit of clever tailoring in a haute couture piece will inspire me to recreate it in knit. I buy the gigantic seasonal editions of fashion mags like Vogue and get an idea of what style elements are up-and-coming and add them to the mix. Sometimes it is a yarn that inspires me, sometimes it's something as simple as the intersection of 2 lines.

What is your favorite part of the design process?

I think my favorite part of the process is actually knitting a piece.
Seeing something as ephemeral as an idea from my head taking shape under my hands is an amazing thing. But my second favorite part is probably photographing it. I love photography and love being able to convey the really tricky bits with pictures in the finished pattern. I am a novice, to say the least, but my DSLR is always with me.

What is the biggest challenge of designing knitting patterns?

I think the biggest challenge is getting what you KNOW you did all written out so OTHER people can do it. I sometimes have to remind myself that knitters cannot read my mind. So it's the designer's responsibility to communicate all of those details. That gets easier with experience, and having a good tech editor is absolutely essential.

Where do you see your designs going in the future?

I have a lot of plans for sweaters and other garment-type structures. I've done a couple, but it makes me a bit nervous. When there are 8 sizes for a sweater that's essentially 8 different patterns that all need to work out correctly with the numbers AND general shape and size. There are a lot of things to take into account all at once. That's when you really want to fall down and worship at the feet of your tech editor :)

Do you have any advice for those out there who are considering designing?

Start small with manageable goals. Design a sock first and see how it goes.
Take copious notes. You think you'll remember, but you won't, so just write it down.
Charts are your friend. Learn to use them, learn to write them, love them with all of your heart.
Design with commercially available yarns. Nothing pisses people off more than wanting to recreate what you've done and finding you did it in a yarn that's been discontinued for 10 years with no easy substitute.

Miriam, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.
Thank you for putting the interview together!


To learn more about Miriam and her designs please visit her blog and her webiste