So once I decided to become a designer, I had a monumental mind shift.  It was like giving myself permission to knit like a crazy woman and all of the guilt magically disappeared.  I was so excited.  But now what?  How do you actually become a knitwear designer?  There wasn’t exactly a step by step guide that I could easily download from the internet.  This was before Shannon Okey’s book The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design was published.  Which has a wealth of information and lead me to discover Whitehead Light Station (that’s for another post).

So basically I just started designing.  I love a lot of color and have a great love of fair isle and color work knitting.  I had recently discovered one of my now-favorite yarns, Kauni Effect at one of my favorite LYS’s, Knit Purl.  (Can anyone assist me in the correct pronunciation of “Kauni”?  Is it like Connie or Cowny?)  I really love this yarn because even though you are only using one colorway, it looks like you’re using several different colors of yarn.  So I designed my first sweater, the XO Cardigan.  This is where the inspiration for a book idea was born.  I’ve designed several other sweaters and am working on matching accessories.

I quickly discovered that it’s fairly easy for me to design and knit a sweater.  The hard part, and what I am currently working on, is getting the patterns written, graded, edited and ready to be sold.  More on this topic later.  Here is a sampling of some of my sweaters:

And the journey continues…..

Shellie