S3 E10: Creativity, Colourwork and 144 Squares with Annah O'Leary

0:00 So, Alec, let me get this right. You were feeling anxious and wanted to do something small and manageable, and as a result, you chose to make this ginormous blanket.

0:12 Yeah, that makes sense, doesn't it?

0:14 Hello and welcome to Yarn Library with me, Adam Cleavely, the podcast where I talk to fascinating people in the fibre world about knitting, creativity, community, and the stories behind the stitches. Pick up your needles, pour a cup of tea, settle in, and welcome to the Yarn Library. Today on the podcast, I'm joined by Anna O'Leary, the author of this recently published book, Knit an Heirloom Blanket.

0:34 I'm super excited to have Anna on the podcast. She's an amazing knitter, and her speciality is colour work designs that are knitted flat. So tell me more about how how do you go from how does that thought process work for you?

0:49 So it's a really good question, and it's something that I often, if I'm talking about the process behind the blanket that's behind me, which is lots of small pieces that are then joined together, it doesn't make sense to try and attempt to make something that is little things, little satisfying projects, but to aim for such a big, big project.

1:08 Like it doesn't, it it feels like the two things kind of contradict each other. But actually, I think I started designing this blanket because I needed something that allowed me to feel a sense of accomplishment and creativity at the same time, but that gave me that in a small kind of hit. I needed to feel like I could achieve something in a short space of time, but that it wasn't just something that was then just going to be hidden away in a box.

1:36 I needed it to build into something bigger.

1:38 So did you start with designing? Did you start out by designing all of the squares?

1:44 No, I designed, so I kind of I started designing a few. I can't remember what the first one I designed was, and then I kind of I got a bit hooked on my iPad for maybe like an afternoon or something, designing maybe 10 or so, and then I started knitting. And I remember because I'd basically only done half a colour work project before I started designing these.

2:07 Um, so I remember kind of starting and then within like a couple of squares, I was like, I'm gonna make this into a massive blanket. It wasn't the thing that I started with. I didn't think I'm going to make a massive blanket before I designed the first square, but within like a couple of squares, I decided that it was going to become something massive.

2:26 And I remember thinking, is this ridiculous to think that I'm going to make a 144-square blanket from these little squares when I've literally not finished a single colour work project in my life.

2:39 I finished it, so you did finish it, so you showed past Anna.

2:44 Yeah, exactly.

2:46 I've got a copy here of your of your book, Knit and Erling Blanket, which is like I was I was staggered when when I saw this because the care and thought that goes behind preparing a project of the not just a project of this magnitude, but a book of this magnitude as well. Because I see you online, I see the things you create, and it is such a big thing.

3:07 And I look at it and think, it's kind of an insurmountable project. Like I couldn't write a book. People said, Oh, I don't want to write a book. I won't. But when did all of that crystallise you? Why are you why did you think about writing a a such a big project?

3:20 So when I designed the blanket, it was n never, and I remember thinking I remember my thought process quite clearly through that time, but I remember thinking, this is for me. I am not turning this into something that I'm going to try and market or sell. So when I was when I was kind of designing it and knitting it myself, I didn't have to think about putting it together as a book or putting it together for someone else to interpret.

3:45 I think if I'd thought about it from that point, from the beginning, it would have felt insurmountable and it would have felt ridiculous and impossible. Um, and I think when my editor contacted me about the book, because I'd already done the pattern, I'd already done this one, like I already knew the process and it didn't, it didn't feel quite as insane.

4:05 Because you're right, it is being like, oh yeah, well, it's however many patterns, 24, or in the book, there's 50 different designs, and each of those gets repeated, and then you put them all together. Like it is quite a long drawn-out project. Like there's no two ways about it. No one's going to do it quickly.

4:21 You taught in secondary, you taught textiles, right? In in in secondary school.

4:24 So textiles and food, yeah.

4:26 Is there anything about how like how children want to learn and be quick or slow? Like, is that do they show lack of patience, or that do you are there any similarities with your when you teach grown-ups colour work?

4:38 Oh, that's a really interesting question. I think with teenagers, or at least the teenagers that I encountered when I was teaching, often they kind of they know they're there for an hour. So they know they they're not allowed out.

4:54 You've got them locked in a room.

4:56 So it's kind of that I would think of it less as patience and more as engagement. Like it's how engaged they are, and I think that was part of the reason why why I enjoy teaching adults a lot more because when they arrive to the class, they have paid for it, they are coming, they are engaged, they want to learn.

5:14 Yeah, there's kind of like they're opting in. Whereas with with teaching kids, they do they do have to be there. So it's in gate, you want to you want to hook them, it's like it's like social media, you kind of have to like pull them in, and that's difficult because sometimes you just have to teach them something that's actually not going to appeal to them that much.

5:31 So I've never taught kids to knit, it's not something that we did, but actually, the more I think about that question, we would do embroidery, like we'd do like an element of embroidery, and actually that's something that I would often find some of the children who I would imagine to be the least receptive to it, it would tap into something that allowed them to just engage with it and just it almost found unlocked this patience that they didn't have before.

6:04 Because you're so absorbed with one stitch and then the next stitch, and then the next stitch, and then the next stitch, they could kind of really enter this almost like a flow state, which I think crafters and knitters and embroiderers and anybody can recognise and be like, oh yeah, I've felt like that before.

6:19 And it was magic. When I could get through to kids like that, it was great. The trouble with a classroom is that even if you've got your toughest student fully engaged doing something, there's going to be two other students on the other side of the room doing something they shouldn't, and then you have to get over there and break the spell, and like, yeah.

6:38 I think actually, kids, teenagers, maybe younger children, they're in a learning mindset because that's what they're told they should be in all the time. Yeah. They they are learning a lot all the time. Like whether it's a toddler, like my daughter's three at the moment, she's learning constantly, or whether it's a teenager who knows that even if they're not that into it, they they go to school and they they learn stuff.

7:02 Whereas with adults, I think we kind of we feel like we should already know things, and we are impatient with ourselves, with ourselves, when we don't know how to do things. And I think giving yourself self the space to learn is actually, it's difficult to kind of hold that space for yourself to be like, I don't know this yet, but I'm going to learn it.

7:24 And I was thinking actually, I was thinking about your your getaways and your retreats and how amazing it must be to have that time and space for the attendees to actually be like, no, this is this is ring-fenced time. I get to to be the student in this and I get to learn this. Um, because I think it's it's difficult to carve out that time as an adult.

7:43 Uh whereas with a child you just get put in a classroom and there's things you can do about it.

7:47 And I I think it's I think it's a real luxury. Like you're right, as an adult, you don't have you're not given time to learn. Like most professional jobs, if you're given learning and development opportunities, like often budgets are set on the basis that you can do one half-day training course or a day training course a year.

8:04 I know, I know there are some professions like doctors where where there'll be more than that, but in most environments, like you don't have structured learning. But it's an important part of being a human. Like you learning and developing and progressing is hugely rewarding. I think that's one of the that's one of the big reasons why I started knitting or why I love knitting so much, is because there's this sort of almost infinite breadth and depth to the subject.

8:29 You can't do everything perfectly. You can't complete it, exactly. It's like someone's made the computer game with infinite levels.

8:39 Yeah, exactly. And uh I think I've come at a lot of well, pattern designing, partly. I like kind of short um tutorials that I've done on Instagram, and I've recently done like a big, massive course that's like I think it's about nine or ten hours of video content, which I don't know how many hours of knitting, a lot of hours of knitting to to kind of learn colour work, but you're ring fencing that and you're saying, right, I'm going to sit down and become a student and go back to that learning headspace and that learning mindset.

9:12 And I think you do actively have to choose to do that as an adult.

9:15 Yeah, I totally agree. You you have to carve out the space, you have to carve out the time to be able to do it. It's usually rewarding once you get there.

9:21 Yeah, I think it's probably more rewarding as an adult because it feels like it's a rarer occurrence. And I guess as adults, we kind of just we just pick things up, and that's something that that happens in knitting, isn't it? Like you might not know how to do a like a I don't know, a backward loop casting or something, and then you have a pattern where you need to do it and you do it, or in Targer and you have a pattern and then you do it.

9:41 I just think the the process of learning is a really interesting one.

9:44 When you teach, I'm really interested about colour work as a as a teaching medium because your big stuff is all knitted flat, right? And that's not that's not such a common way to knit colour work. Like a lot of people colour work is in the round.

10:00 Yeah, I know, and I think that's something that I don't worry about it, but I no, I do worry about it. I worry that it will put people off my work, that most of it, all but one of my patterns, are knitted flat. So the reason I teach my classes flat, there is the option to do it in the round. One is because it would take twice as long, so you'd only get that much knitted.

10:19 You'd only get one inch rather than two.

10:21 Yeah, exactly. But you you will probably encounter needing to knit colour work flat at some point in a pattern. If you've got short rows, you need to knit that flat. Like if you've got you might have cardigan that you don't want to steak. If you don't know how to knit it flat, then it's gonna be more difficult when you're working on a higher stakes project.

10:42 So I think I have heard people describe my patterns as a load of swatches, which I personally, if I was saying it, that would be a compliment. But I feel like they were saying it as, oh, it's a load of swatches. Ugh, I hate swatches. And I think I think you probably fall into two camps. Like, if you don't like swatches, forget I've ever said that my work is just a load of swatches because otherwise you'll never unsee it.

11:07 I agree that I think that's a that's a wonderful thing. I remember when I first started knitting, someone someone suggested like within the first couple of months of me knitting, they suggested getting a stitch dictionary. I think it's my local yarn store. And I got the Vogue knitting stitch dictionary, because like that was the one that's like everyone seemed to recommend.

11:26 And the one like I was just presented with a thousand different squares of knitting, and I was like, Oh, you could make all of these squares and then make them into something. And I was like, what could I make them into? That that was as far as that thought ever went.

11:40 Yeah, yeah. Like most of my things. But then you follow that thought down a bit more and you're like, oh, but there'd be different gauges and there'd be different sizes and they'd be all and then yeah, which I think is why uh when I was designing this, I was like, they all have to be the same size, they all have to be squares, and then you can join them together, and and then it becomes less like a swatch, like a gauge swatch, and more.

12:01 Anna, this is a really nerdy question, but I'm I'm really curious. Like, if you've got three colours going on and you've got a more dense pattern in that colour work compared to say if you've got a more open pattern and just two colours, like does that affect the gauge of these squares or not noticeably enough that when you're joining it up it matters?

12:17 I've definitely noticed a difference in the size of the finished square. And I think because I when I started this blanket, it really was one of the first projects that I knitted, so I didn't really appreciate the importance of gauge. Um, but that all of them are the same stitch count, so they will all be knitted with the same number of stitches.

12:36 And what I do is I just block it really aggressively. If it's too small, I just make it fit. And actually, um you can't tell because this is this is face-on, but there is um some of them you can see that they are different sizes because there's a slight ripple in them, or the the kind of the joining is is stretching them slightly.

12:57 Um, but what I did with this blanket is I actually edged each square with a single, it's kind of like a crochet, like a slip stitch. I don't know if it's actually really a stitch, but that helped to kind of even the shape out, and then I joined them with a crochet hook, which always blows people's minds when I'm like at an event and I show them, they're like, I don't have to do mattress stitch.

13:20 Um but the benefit of that is that it does kind of frame it, it gives it a size that it it should be. Um so even if there is a bit of a ripple in the blanket, overall it lays pretty flat.

13:33 I was interested as well. I was listening to another podcast, and I immediately wanted to ask you when I heard it, your designs come across as very like natural, they look nature-based, and I was quite interested that you talked about when you like drawing your favourite thing to draw is buildings. So yeah.

13:51 I think partly because I'm rubbish at drawing flowers and trees, I can't draw them. Yeah, it's funny. Actually, I was at my parents the other day and I found a sketchbook that was my granddad's, he would have been a hundred um last week. I met him once when I was a tiny baby, um, but he was kind of what they would have called a draftsman, he drew a lot.

14:14 And I opened up this sketchbook and I was like, I would have drawn that. It was a building that was exactly the kind of building that I would have drawn. And I was just like, that's so funny. Is I don't know, is it funny? Like you could draw anything, isn't it? You could draw anything. Like you could walk into a city and you could draw the people, you could draw the dogs, you could draw the the trees, but the buildings is what I've always been drawn to, and he he was too.

14:37 And it's yeah, I don't know. It's um I think the kind of I really enjoy the rip the rigidity and repetitiveness of a building, and I think that's kind of even it doesn't matter how nature-inspired a knitting design is, it is pixels, it is squares, there are straight lines that can go in a curve, but it's like if you zoom in on a clip art, it will have a jagged edge.

15:05 And I think I don't know, I think there's a kind of a synergy with that of being drawn to an element of kind of geometry, but also bringing in a kind of softer feeling to that rigidity. I don't know if that makes any sense.

15:22 It really does. I'm or if my so I I'm I'm also fascinated by architectural detail. And like when I when I walk around cities sometimes, I like it's a big thing for me that I now, as part of my creative process, when I see something interesting on a building, I think, how would I knit that? Just as a mental exercise to go through.

15:40 But I'm interested whether you're talking about in that rigidity, whether you're talking about like brutalist architecture or like lots of gothic lines, or like do you have an era of building that is that you go to that you find more exciting?

15:54 To be honest, I I'm such a kind of collector, like I love I I love brutalist architecture, but I also love kind of intricate carving and like flying buttresses and stuff like that. So I really I tend to be more drawn, it's often like kind of ironwork and things like that, and carvings and and like the drawing I'm thinking of is like when we went to Madrid years and years ago of just sitting and drawing the repair like the repeated motif of a window with a balcony, and then a slightly different window with a slightly different balcony underneath, and then the the door beneath it that also echoes bits of ironwork from the balcony.

16:35 It's yeah, I think it's seeing patterns and repeated motifs within a building, and I think that does kind of you can see it when you if you saw the two side by side, you'd see, oh yeah, okay, I can see that the repeated elements of the knitted work are inspired by this kind of repeated motifs that you see in life or in buildings or in yeah.

17:00 It's fascinating. There is something beautiful about um knitting patterns which have a simple repeating motif through them as well, where you have like that architectural design. I'm I'm thinking my brain goes to like bricks, that pattern where you have bricks highlighted within a um pattern that that's the most architectural thing, I guess.

17:19 But where you have then that's when it just continues over the whole large garment or something, it is it is pleasing. There is a there is something really rewarding about that.

17:30 And I think when you then bring it into yarn, you then have well, you could use a solid yarn, you could use a variegated yarn, you could use stripes, you could, and you can bring in all of those different, like it doesn't have to be as literal as it's brick coloured. It you can bring in all of these different elements that then turn it into something else.

17:47 So you don't look at something and say, well, that's a brick wall as a sweater. Like it becomes something else.

17:54 Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's a there's a there's a translation of it. You're starting to talk there about um how I guess there's a creative process to knitting and what you do. And I'm interested, from your point of view as a designer, whether you have specific time carved out for creativity.

18:12 I would love to have specific time carved out for creativity.

18:16 Um that an unfair question to ask a mum of a three-year-old toddler.

18:20 Oh I think the last month, so I moved a month ago tomorrow. Um, the last month has been the busiest month of my life. I can't even conceive of creative time right now. So we moved a month ago, I launched an e-course, I did a book signing and taught at Farnham Unravel Festival, went away for the weekend, my daughter left nursery, Yarndale, launched a book, my husband started a new job.

18:47 It was his birthday yesterday, my daughter started a new nursery. It's just like the every day has been like a kind of onslaught of I don't know, intense stuff.

18:57 That's I mean, that's a reasonably busy month. Any one of those things in a month would be enough. I mean, moving house is plenty.

19:03 Yeah, I don't want to do it again ever. I'm here now for life. So I'm thinking back to a time when I was um designing a lot more regularly because I feel like I haven't designed anything for a really long time because the book was such a big project, but I was designing that 18 months ago. So that feels like it's way in the past now, and I've got all these ideas that are kind of fizzing in the background and and like stuff that I've launched that just has not really gone anywhere.

19:31 But what I love the most is so I've got a blanket here. Um, I don't know if I'm actually gonna be able to show you. So this is my year-by-piece blanket, and this was done as a knit-along in 2025, I think.

19:45 There we go.

19:45 I can see a bit of it.

19:46 Was it a knit-along through the whole year?

19:49 Yes, yes, it was a mystery knit along. So I was designing it as we went, which was so much fun because each month I would be like, right, this is my starting point. I'd kind of publish what this what the inspiration for each month was going to be. So whether it was kind of like daffodils for March or like the skiers for February, or um butterflies for June.

20:12 So I knew what the vague starting point was, but then I would take sometimes I'd take a whole day and go out and kind of like draw and and and have time to properly immerse myself in in whatever inspiration it was. Um towards the end was when I was also writing the book, so it was a bit more kind of scrabbled, but I would carve out some time, paint or draw, go to an exhibition, and actually give myself the time to think and design.

20:46 Because I think without that things can feel very rushed and you kind of miss the you miss the point or you miss the process of actually developing a design. Um and actually that's something that now that a slightly busier period has calmed down for me, like now that life has calmed down a little bit, hopefully, for me.

21:07 Um I really want to get back to that kind of design process and taking time with it rather than rushing.

21:15 And is there a way so that so there's creating time to be able to do those things? You talked about going to a gallery, being able to spend time outside. Is there a mindset you use? Are there any tools or tricks you use to say, like, right, this is I am going to be creative now?

21:35 Oh, I don't think creativity necessarily responds that well to that. It's like, no, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be creative now. Um I think you kind of I don't know. I think in the past, certainly before having my daughter, I would have been like, oh, the conditions have to be correct, and I have to kind of be in the Right mindset to do this and and things like that.

22:03 That's what interests me so much about creativity because I so I don't see myself as a creative person at all. Like throughout my life, I've never seen myself as creative. And I'm really interested.

22:13 Because you c you really are.

22:14 But you see, I've the way the way in which I have to like when I when I want to be creative, I've created processes for myself. Like such a such an engineering way to solve this. I'm like, how do I Oh really? How do I so I So what do you do? Well, so I I've got a number of tricks, but I force myself in like because like you say, like I'm you're a busy person, you say, like, right, I've got half an hour, I need to be creative.

22:39 My brain obviously doesn't want to play ball in that time, so so how do you do it? Absolutely, I carve out space and time, and like that is a uh no distractions time, so my phone goes away, all everything else. But then it's it's a it's a process of like what is the creative problem that I'm trying to solve, and then I have techniques for um for like bringing together lots of disparate ideas, forcing myself to think of disconnected ideas and then forcing myself to connect them.

23:08 And it's that it's that process which I found over the last few years where connecting disparate ideas makes my brain much more open to like doing that on a normal day-to-day basis anyway, and so I found myself becoming more and more creative because like the little the little signals at the edges of your consciousness are louder, and you and I and I find that I'm more able to bring those into like everyday what I'm trying to do.

23:39 But but it is a really tuning your brain in to a frequency and being like Yeah, and seeing things through a certain lens.

23:48 Exactly, but it is something that I find that I have to routinely force myself to do, and I don't like I'm trying to find other creatives, I talk to other creative people to like, how do you do it? Like, what are the other techniques I should use?

24:02 But but it's interesting that a lot of creative people don't I find it wild that you you would view yourself as not a creative person. Like you look, you take one look at your designs, and there is just and I don't mean this in a negative way at all, there's a chaos of creativity. Like there are so many different draw, like drawing from so many different inspirations, and like a real experimental and what I see as like a freeness to experiment.

24:30 It's like you're kind of you experiment with the shape, with the construction, with the with the textures, with the colours, like the the um like the chrysalis stitch that you did that used the pooling. Like there's so many different elements that I just find it bonkers that you you would not see yourself as naturally creative.

24:50 But I'm but I think that's it, it's it's not naturally creative. I definitely like I definitely do creative things now, but it's partly by by training myself to try and do that. And it's like I love it, like it's being able to find that child that you childish playfulness, as you say, like it's the playfulness.

25:08 It's massively rewarding.

25:11 But it's it is in sat, yeah. I think knitting has given me more of a confidence in my creativity. I think that's something that that especially like publishing patterns and seeing people enjoy them, that's definitely given me like a bit more confidence. Um I've just thought of a I had a question that was lined up, and I'm gonna I'm gonna do what you did at the beginning, and I'm gonna ask you.

25:34 Go for it. Okay.

25:35 So if you're not creative, what the hell gave you the thought that you could design patterns and sell them?

25:40 I don't know. A reckless amount of uh self-confidence. I don't know. The first the first pattern I des I designed and I wrote down was it is so appalling. It's all every first pattern is like it's it's a deep embarrassment, but I've buried it's it's a brioche hat.

26:01 Okay, like it was like brioche, starting with brioche, amazing.

26:04 Well, I also wrote it. I didn't know how to write brioche, so I literally wrote the step-by-step instructions of literally what you do and where you put the yarn. So I was like, I don't know how to do this, but it was um I I did it because I I made the hat for my daughter and then I stuck it on Instagram and I tagged Malabrigo because I used their yarn, and they wrote to me, and I was just like, This is the biggest deal in the whole wide world.

26:30 I can't believe that they've they've said, Oh, if there's a pattern for this, we'll put it on our page. And I was like, oh, this is huge. So immediately I wrote the pattern in notes on my phone. I was like, Yeah, I've made a pattern, I've put it on Ravelry, so you can put it on your page now. And then 300 people downloaded it.

26:48 Yeah, they they they put it in like 300 people downloaded it, and um, I think a couple of people even managed to make the hat from it, but I I I rewrote the pattern. Um and in like it's it's free on my website, it's like the it's the one you get for free, and now now it is a well-formatted, proper pattern.

27:08 But at the back of it, as an appendix, I've included my original because I wanted I also wanted to show other designers that when you start it's it's rubbish.

27:21 Yeah. But there's a process that is gone through.

27:25 And and and people around you help, and that's uh like it's a beautiful thing about the community that that there are people around that say that can give you that support.

27:34 But I Yeah, definitely.

27:36 It was also an interest in um in sharing, in in creating designs that I thought were interesting and taking sources of inspiration. Like I I look at for example part of my creative process, one of the things that I do is I say, is now I take a designer and I I think about a designer and I think how would this designer approach this specific problem?

28:03 And I try to imagine that, and then I you know I sketch things out, and then sometimes that's most of the time that comes to nothing, but sometimes you think, oh, there's something. And in a way, like I don't that's that's why I think about it as a like artificial creativity, because it's because it's like in a way there's mimicry in there, but then like that that is how so much of the world works.

28:29 That's how the world works.

28:30 Very few unique like stitches, though. Like you are combining two sticks, a long piece of string, and a collection of motions. Like that's that's what knitting is, and and yes, there are probably not quite infinite, but there are many ways to manipulate those things together, but it's still there is still always going to be inspiration and um some like crossover between different techniques and different looks and different styles.

29:07 I think where the what comes in and and why, I don't know. Hang on, let me just think of what I'm trying to say here. I think it's it's about being genuine with your own design intentions and your own design kind of um inspiration. That's where you start to see a signature style for people and a signature kind of look for people's designs.

29:27 And and I think, yeah, I think that's what starts to build someone as a designer is all of the elements and how they interpret them. You could have two designers starting from a very similar starting point or the same inspiration, and they'll come to completely different kind of conclusions, or you could have two people starting from different starting points and coming to a very similar conclusion.

29:49 Like all of our brains work differently, and I think, yeah, it's just different ways of interpreting things and creating things. I get quite worried about my own. I don't know if integrity is the right word, but I worry that people will think that I've copied other people a lot. Like I worry about that, even when I know that my inspiration has come and I've done something independently.

30:13 Like, so there's an uh you you'll know of um of Pacific Nitko, and there have been several times she's incredible and she is such an open and lovely, lovely person. Um, and there have been times when, for example, the February square with my skiers, we both ended up doing a similar design and releasing them almost simultaneously, I think.

30:35 Neither of us could have copied each other because we were, it's not like we responding to seeing, I haven't responded to seeing her designs, she hasn't responded to seeing my designs. We've both got a similar interest in colour work. You've come to a similar similar conclusion and a similar outcome.

30:53 And I think often we're like in a very polarised world, aren't we? Where people are like, Oh, you must have copied them, or no one's ever said that, but that's what people assume, rather than actually like maybe people just come to the same conclusion. And it is difficult, right?

31:06 Because there's where we're at right now, there is copying going on, and and there are there are cases, there are cases where knitting designers and so on are copied. I mean, I I think the the big difference is that like if you if a design is published inside of a few weeks of another design, there's no copying that goes on because you know that the process behind that is months.

31:30 They've spent months on it, yeah.

31:32 So yeah, no, you're right. And I'm I'm not meaning to in any way like say, oh, if p if someone's copied someone, then it's you know just their creative process. But I think again, it's like that kind of nuance, isn't it? There's there's copying, there's ripping patterns off completely, and then there's coming to a similar conclusion creatively as someone else, which yeah.

31:51 I think we do have a problem in kind of fibre arts at the moment of people using AI, people, or not even people using it just using AI, people using downloading a pattern and then selling it as their own on their own website. And it's not even recreating it, it's just selling the PDF as that's happened to me quite a few times, and and it's really upsetting because they use your own photos, and it's like people use your photos.

32:21 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they haven't made it themselves and taken a photo of it and sold the pattern. They have downloaded the pattern, they've I think someone renamed it the Netflix and chill blanket rather than piece by piece, or it wasn't even like Netflix and chill, it was like it just so frustrating.

32:41 And they've literally downloaded the PDF and re-uploaded it on their own website, and it's just it blows my mind that people think that that's well, they they probably know that they're doing something wrong and they're just trying to make some money from it. But I mean, choose a different industry to try and make money from.

32:58 I know that there's no money in knitting anyway.

33:04 It's a slog to to make money in knitting, but yeah. I was going to ask you actually about like kind of on on the um the kind of the topic of designing and launching your own designs. What has been the thing that you found hardest about designing and what has surprised you the most about designing and selling your own patterns?

33:25 By far the thing that surprises me the most is how drastically your estimations of how good a pattern is can be off. Like, I can think I've designed a a life-changing pattern, something that I think is so unique and novel and wonderful, and I think it is the best thing ever, and then you put it online and there is zero excitement about it, and literally, you know, four people buy it or something, and you're like, and that that expectation versus reality is a car crash every single time.

33:58 It's a nice surprise when a pattern goes really well, but like that that moment of pain is so sharp for me because it because it is at the end of such an enormous amount of work that goes into it. The other thing that's a really big surprise I really hope that's Yeah, exactly. Like, please stop, please stop.

34:16 Um But the other thing that's a surprise is how and it and it makes me it it makes me question whether I ever want to create new designs because often I can sketch something out for me in a note form where like how to knit this scarf that I'm wearing, for example, in so few lines, like half a page at most, maybe a quarter of a page of a of a notebook will be my finished design for me that I'll be able to write this for.

34:46 But when you write a pattern, in order to be able to make it complete for almost anyone to be able to approach and design and uh or rather make themselves, that's there's so much more work that goes into that, so many more words that go into it, and making sure it's robust against learning styles and learning preferences, and um whether someone wants whether they need videos or visuals and all the rest of that, and that's that's just hard.

35:18 That I think she comes from a very different perspective on it, that I tend not to assume much knowledge, and it sounds like you you are similar, you assume a very like low, maybe entry-level amount of knowledge, because then you can build from there. Like if someone already knows how to how to do an increase and they know how to do an increase, they can just ignore that bit.

35:38 And I just I found that conversation with Patty really interesting because it made me think what is the right amount of information to include in a pattern? Like, is including a video on the increases too much, or is that actually accessible? Or yeah, I don't know, it's a funny one, isn't it?

35:56 It it totally is. Like my the spiral hat that I made, which was a super popular pattern, well it's called Talker's hat. That was something, again, I wrote that in an inch by inch square. Like that was my whole design for that. And if you gave that to an experienced knitter, they would totally get it and they'd be able to knit the hat from that tiny piece of information.

36:17 Yeah, like most of my audience online is I love connecting with people and getting that feedback, like, oh, I haven't knitted in years, or I've never knitted, but I started because you said XYZ or whatever.

36:30 Yeah.

36:30 I love that. And so I want to make these patterns also approachable for that person, and so it's like I don't know, you almost need like two different patterns of everyone. Like what here is here is the expert level, here is the beginner version.

36:45 Yeah, this I've got I've got my mate here. So this is this is my wave by wave cow, and you could almost do a two-square grid for the pattern and cast on X number of stitches, and that could be it for the pattern. But the pattern, so I do it as a printed pattern, and it's I think it's like eight, maybe eight pages long, and it has video links because there's so much more that you can explore within those that two-square pattern repeats.

37:15 And it's just so interesting. And I I I really like the fact that a lot of designers do go into more detail because I think the more people that are interested in knitting and that that are um helped to knit, the richer the the community, and the more people I'm gonna be able to talk to knitting about.

37:32 Yeah, I mean the other thing that I assume is like if you're that much of an expert knitter, why are you buying a pattern? Like, surely an image of it is enough for you to be able to go away and knit it yourself. Like, why do you need me to tell you how to do it?

37:45 I often think that. Yeah, I often think that at events. Like, someone could take a picture, someone could zoom in on a picture of a lot of my designs and just copy them. They could just they don't need the chart, they could just knit them. Um, but I think that's that, yeah, that's going down a slightly different like people do value the instructions and things like that.

38:01 But yeah, I think I don't mean to disagree with Patty Lyons because she is amazing, um, but I I do love the teaching process and doing that through a pattern as well.

38:12 Yeah, and being able to give people that sort of aha moment, but I mean it it's it's just different, right? There's a there's so many people in the world who are in the in the fibre art space, and there's like there's room for everyone to do it in their own way, right?

38:28 Yeah, I agree, then definitely. And I think it's about our different kind of approaches to learning. And actually, I was gonna ask you about if you're trying to learn a technique, do you dive straight into a garment or a full piece, or do you want to learn it as a small piece first? I know the I think I know the answer.

38:46 I think I know your answer, but I'd like to hear what you what I'd like to hear.

38:50 I think you're about to be surprised. I knit tiny little swatches all the time.

38:55 Oh, do you? Because I do. I'm sure I just said it's spoken to you at some point, and you were like, no, I just go in with the full garment challenged.

39:04 So, I mean, this the jumper I'm wearing, for example, which is like I my most worn garment on on Instagram, it's like I didn't swatch any part of this. This was absolutely something where I just went in and was like, just go for it. And there are techniques on here that I'd never done before. So I tried to do a um a way of like making a hem life flat uh uh the the bottom sort of piece of ribbing, and I was like, do you know what?

39:32 Like I'd literally knitted the whole body of this jumper, and like I'm gonna try a new technique now, and I did, and for the first time on here.

39:42 I I've um just kind of recently published this e-course that I did, which was like an introduction to to colour work knitting, and I ended up knitting this um bizarre thing here. Um I should have I was looking for a balloon before we came on the call because it's if you put a balloon in it, it looks like a hot air balloon.

39:59 Oh but this was this was my way of teaching Raglan increases and decreases. So In colour work. I've yeah, in colour work, because I feel quite strongly that if I if I have invested, if I'm about to invest time, money through yarn and effort into a jumper, I want to be sure that my technique is right and that I'm not making mistakes because I want it to look good.

40:31 Like I think as I've got more if as I've knitted more, my tolerance of being like, oh, I'll just leave it as a mistake has de decreased.

40:41 Yeah.

40:42 Like I don't want it, I don't want to see a mistake. Like there's mistakes I can put up with. Like if a stitch count is one stitch off and it's not actually going to make any difference, fine. But I don't want to make a mistake on the increases, and for that to be really obvious, for example. So yeah, I th I think swatching, um, a lot of people don't like it as a concept, but I think it can be one of the most important parts of learning how to knit and learning techniques with knitting.

41:11 That's also like the fact that my desk and what ever every part of my life is littered with these little patches, like is is i exactly the same for me. And I that's why I guess I I thought about your your blanket. The problem is for me, I never knit these the same size, they're always in different materials because it's always like what bits of scrap yarn can I cast this on with?

41:32 But I agree, like, and and there's also like on this jumper that I'm wearing, there are some functional parts of it which I really screwed up, which only became obvious to me after the whole thing's finished, and like every time I wear it, I sort of I used to be totally happy with the mistakes, and the as more the time goes on, as you say, like, well now I'm now I'm good enough that if I did that again, I'd do it a different way.

42:00 You'd know what to do. You know what you didn't know then.

42:03 I want to go back to that beautiful example that you just had. Is that not gonna be a like it looks like a teapot, Cozy?

42:10 It does, doesn't it?

42:11 You could have a little steaking lesson in there, and then it would be a you could make a tea.

42:15 Yeah, yeah, I mean, I might I will do a steaking version. Um I really just want to make it into a hot hot air balloon. Yeah. Um yeah, I don't know, I'll add it to the pile of stuff that I'm trying to do. Just general stuff everywhere.

42:34 You've taken such an amazing move of like of of quitting your job to say, like, I am doing this and this is the thing I'm doing. But you've built a um you've built books and patents and you've got online course now as well that you've you've built. And that's a I mean it's an incredible investment that you've put into it.

42:53 And uh the position that I was in was that I was working part-time as a teacher, my physical health, I had um some pretty scary uh neurological things going on and was losing my eyesight, which was as someone who my whole identity is to do with with things that I see. Like it the it was just inconceivable that I would continue doing what I was doing given that it was having an impact on my health.

43:22 Um, and my eyesight is like 95% back to what it was before, so it's okay.

43:28 But that's terrifying.

43:31 It was, yeah, it was. And actually, I was still knitting during that time. I was just knitting on like eight mil needles, so I could see what I was knitting. But but I think I was in a position where I was kind of confronted with a well, you either take a punt on it, because that's your only other option at the moment.

43:50 I didn't see any other way of kind of any other career really. You either do that or you carry on doing what you're doing, and you're going to carry on being quite ill. So yeah, I kind of but but but that bet seems fingers crossed to have kind of paid off at the moment, and I do it part-time. I don't know what will happen when my daughter goes to school, and I have like a little bit more time, but yeah, it's I'm in it for the ride.

44:18 So what what does what does what does your design work look like going forwards? Are you uh do you have more um blanket designs that you're thinking about, or are you are you thinking more about these these smaller objects?

44:32 So I've got two big blanket designs ideas in mind. Um, and the more I think about them, the more I'm like, oh actually I've got more than two, I've got several. Um and then I've got lots of little ideas for things. And I think I really need to like take a break and be like, or not a not a break, but take a moment to reflect and be like, okay, what am I actually going to focus on?

44:59 Am I focusing just on blankets? Am I going to focus on accessories? I would love to design garments, but I don't feel like I've got the expertise to do that at the moment. So do I um invest some time in learning that? Do I I don't know.

45:14 Anna, just just before we finish, like if people want to find you, if they want to find more information about you, more information about your patterns, where do they go for that?

45:23 So I'm at needle and feather on Instagram. That's where I mainly reside. I do also have a TikTok account, but I have deleted the app. Um I post tutorials, less so at the moment, but I am planning to ramp that back up. Um and I'm also Needle and Feather on Ravelry and YouTube.

45:42 Anna, it's been such a pleasure to be able to talk to you. So thank you so much for coming on Yarn Library Podcast.

45:48 Thank you so much. It's been, yeah, it's been such a delight to chat to you. And you are a very, very creative person, and it's not manufactured creativity. It's wonderful.

45:57 Thank you for saying that. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Yarn Library. If you've enjoyed the conversation, please do follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you have a moment to leave a rating or review, it genuinely helps more people discover the show. If you have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode, someone you want to hear me interview, email me at podcast at cleavelynits.com.

46:18 And if you'd like to see this conversation or watch some of my longer form videos, head to Clevelandits on YouTube. I'll be back very soon with another episode. Until then, thank you for listening and happy knitting.