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Week of Interviews – Rachel Coopey and Bockleton Socks

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Rachel Coopey creates the most amazing socks.  And’s she’s rather prolific too.  She’s also the creator of the Bockleton Socks, which feature distinctive color-work around the ankle.  She’s stopped by to answer some questions today about her design process, plus some silly questions I threw in.

How did you come up with the colorwork and stitch pattern? 

When I was designing the colourwork patterns I used in these socks I doodled with a pencil for a while, when I came up with something I liked I transferred it to a chart making program and worked on it a bit more before I started to swatch. I wanted a textured pattern for the foot, something simple but interesting to knit.

Where there difficulties you encountered as you worked on the pattern? 
It’s important to make sure your stranded knitting isn’t too tight, it won’t have as much stretch as stockinette stitch and it need to be able to go over the heel when you put the socks on. Some knitters use a larger needle for colourwork and a smaller needle for the non-colourwork sections in order to get the same gauge on the different sections. 

How do you come up for names for your pattern? 
The name of this pattern is also a village close to where I live, I like the sound of the word!

What is inspiring you right now? Do you have pictures, patterns or motifs? 
I’m really inspired by tiles at the moment, a lot of geometric patterns are flying around my head waiting to get out!

Quick, your some yarn! What are you? Why?
Sock yarn of course! Something with a bit of nylon because I work hard(!) and maybe a bit of cashmere because I’m soft and fluffy!
Enjoyed Rachel?  Go over and visit her blog!

This is part of an ongoing series of interviews with Sockupied Designers.  You can trackback to other interviews at:

If you would like to track back to the other interviews they are as follows:

Week of Interviews – Alice Yu and Deuce

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Alice Yu has an impressive knitting resume.  She is the owner of Socktopus, and creator of the popular Knit Love Yarn Club.  You my recognize her work by the popular pattern, Shur’tugal or by her book, published in 2011, Socktopus: 17 Pairs of Socks to Knit and Show Off.  Alice has kindly managed to carve out time in her schedule to answer some of my questions.

Alice, tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m an expat Canadian living in Hong Kong by way of London England.  I used to be a lawyer, then sort of fell into knitting, like falling down the rabbit hole. Ever since then my life has been an adventure in knitting, designing and dyeing yarns. 
Deuce has such a fascinating stitch pattern.  Loving working with stranded yarns and slipped stitches, I’m curious how you came up with the pattern.  Did you need to swatch for it very much?

I played around with slipped stitches with my design De Stijl, and thought that it had potential.  Deuce is a follow on from that design, using the same technique.  I played around with alot of different combinations but settled on one that was relatively easy to remember.  
How did you come up with the names for your pattern?
Names for patterns are often inspired by my life at the time of designing, or if the pattern reminds me of something (like Fiori di Zucca that reminded me of zucchini  flowers).
Why do you like to design socks?
I love socks because they are the ultimate portable project. A small microcosm where you can play with all manner of knitting techniques – short rows, slipped stitches, texture, cables, etc.  A great canvas but not overly involved – I have  short attention span so socks are the perfect thing for me.
Are there any things you are hoping to design in the future?
I would like to design some kid’s wear – having a little one has opened up a lot of possibilities and things I would like to see her in but can’t find.
Is there a favorite time of day you prefer to knit?
I love knitting in the afternoon – a nice calm time when I’m not too tired. 
If you were making your own trail mix, what would you put in it, and why?
My own trail mix would have: raisins, a nice 54% chocolate chip, roasted almonds, granola clusters, Brazil nuts (love those), dried cranberries, some cocao nibs, and roasted hazelnuts. 
Having said that, I do love Chex mix.
Thank you Alice for taking the time to stop and chat  with us today.  If you are interested in more about Alice, visit her website at http://www.socktopus.co.uk/blog/.
If you would like to track back to the other interviews they are as follows:

Second Day of Interviews – Kim Haesemeyer and Bowden Cable Socks

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Kim Haesemeyer is the delightful designer of Bowden Cable Socks in Interweave’s most current issue of Sockupied.  Kim is a pretty prolific designer, and has a variety of her patterns available at her Ravelry page. She most graciously agreed to answer some questions for me about her socks, and what inspires her.  Without further ado, here is Kim:

How did you come up with the cable pattern?
Simple cables are some of my favorite stitch patterns to knit because with very little effort you have a wonderful new fabric. I wanted the cuff ribbing to naturally flow into the main cable pattern, so I just played with combinations until I found what I thought worked well. Plus, cabling is truly just another fancy ribbing since the pull-in of the stitches creates wonderful stretch to fit your foot nicely. This is also an ideal pattern to practice cabling without a cable needle.

How do you come up for names for your pattern?
Interweave chose the name for me and I love it! Classic with a bit of zing.

What is inspiring you right now?  Do you have pictures, patterns or motifs?
I always have fun finding a particular part of a garment like the silhouette or stitch pattern and wonder how I can rework it for my purposes. What makes this garment work? What do I like about it? Would that stitch pattern a fun body pattern? Or just a hint of excitement along a neck or cuff edge? Would that work for a hat or mitten? 

Why do you like to design socks?
Socks are a great way to try stitch patterns without having to commit to a huge garment. Plus, colors that may be too crazy for you to wear in other ways is the perfect amount of excitement in a pair of socks. Slightly zany socks absolutely brighten my day and even if the world cannot see them, I know they are there. If I am feeling more adventurous, I have seen the clear boots advertised in knitting magazines and thought they would be a fun way to showcase socks.

What do you hope to design in the future?
The exciting (and often overwhelming!) part of knitting design is how there are so many possibilities. I look forward to learning different sweaters and as well as other types of heels and toes in sock knitting.

What is your favorite item to knit?
I enjoy accessories because you can splurge on fancy yarn a bit if there isn’t too much yardage. I love to knit socks for the same reason — often just one hank makes the perfect pair and they travel well without taking up much space. Vests are my other favorite because they are so fast to knit seamlessly and they are the perfect layering piece to enjoy nearly year round.

Is there a favorite time of day you prefer to knit?
I like to process my day with my knitting so I have to knit at least for a bit in the evening. I have recently combined my two favorite things, knitting and reading, by listening to audio books. Why it took me so long to figure this out, I don’t know. Before I could only do one or the other, but now I can do both all day long!

Quick, your an animal!  What are you?  Why?
The ocean is my favorite and I always thought it would be amazing to explore the seas being a dolphin. Imagine how much they have seen that we know nothing about!

If you would like to learn more about Kim, visit her at her website,  bigskyyarnsandcrafts.com.
To read yesterday’s interview with Claire on my blog visit here.

A Week of Interviews Claire Ellen and Uloborus

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Welcome to a week of interviews!  This week I have a special treat for you… I’ll be featuring interviews from various designers from the latest issue of Sockupied.

Today, Tuesday, we have an interview with Claire Ellen, who created the truly stunning Uloborus Socks.  Claire is currently in Hungary in Karcag, and writes very eloquently about her experiences abroad.  And without further ado, I’ll let Claire tell you about her Uloborus Socks, and the process they went through before they became what you see in Sockupied today.

One of the things I love most about designing socks– any socks, all socks, all the time!– is that each element of the knitting can have a different motif or idea. A sock has so many different planes and angles, and each one can host a different pattern or the same pattern or a combination of different ideas. I love that the foot can be different than the ankle; the gusset can host a pattern or be plain; etc. The possibilities are endless. 

I was an English major in school, and an English professor once I graduated, and I love finding connections in novels and poetry. When I began playing with yarn, it was a simple process to include literary connections– they’re the two things I love most. Sometimes the connections only make sense in my brain, but it’s as though I can see a knit pattern that embodies some theme or character from the literature. It began when I saw a yarn at The Swift Stitch (my LYS in Santa Cruz) that just screamed Gimli, from the Lord of the Rings. That began my designing whirlwind, and it just keeps getting better! I’d never have dreamed that this silly little hobby of mine combined with an obsession with literature would result in such a degree of fame and fortune. Ha! But seriously, this was all really unexpected. 

As far as the Uloborus socks go, well, they’re really a continuation of the Lord of the Rings series of socks that I thought I had finished. I don’t know if it makes any sense to anybody else, but the collections of patterns are broken into groups of characters I thought went well together– The Fellowship of the Nine was an obvious starting place. Then came what I think of as the “Other Heroes” then “The Ladies,” and finally, a small (but hopefully growing soon) collection from The Hobbit. People were pressuring me to do a “Villains” group, but I’d had enough. I just don’t like the villains. Because, you know, they’re villains. Besides, I thought, how much black yarn can a person knit with? Anyway, I’d thought the collection was finished, and I wanted to knit other things. 

But Shelob (Tolkien’s big spider monster) got under my skin. Scary thought, that! I’d seen several spider-themed socks on Ravelry, and they’re beautiful! But none of them really captured the creepy-ick factor of Shelob in my mind. So I started swatching. And reswatching, and playing around with cables, then with lace, and then bam. It just happened. I was looking through a stitch dictionary, and there it was. Perfect! Just the right amount of Creepy-ick, with some beauty and some delicacy thrown in for good measure. The pattern needed a bit of fiddling, and I needed some additional stitches to fill out the sock, but I just knew this was it. 

Sockupied contacted me the day that I finally got the ankle swatch to work the way I wanted it. They were looking for submissions with a short deadline; I was playing with a stitch pattern, but also planning a move from California to Budapest! It’s a good thing these socks practically knit themselves, and the staff of Sockupied were so helpful, or they’d never have gotten finished up. As for the name, someone at Sockupied came up with “Uloborus” which is a super icky tropical spider of some sort. Good, eh? 

Working on these socks has left me wondering if I might not just return to Tolkien as a source of inspiration and do some villain socks after all. The Mouth of Sauron has a certain horrible charm to him that might translate well to a sock. Right now, though, I’m working like crazy trying to adapt to a new country, new language, sparsity of sock yarn, and a whole host of other issues. I’ve also got Shakespeare on the brain of late, and several socks published, in process, and being tested that borrow from the “Sweet Swan of Avon” for inspiration. 

I began designing socks on a lark. It was something to do with my evenings while my family watched basketball finals or CSI reruns. How could I have guessed that I’d love it the way I do. I’d rather knit socks than just about anything else. I’d do it whether anybody else ever knit my designs or not, and I’ll keep on doing it till it’s not fun anymore. 

Check out the Proposal! Totem

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When I first
started designing, one of the most helpful resources I had access to was a
thread on Ravelry (actually, it might have been several) that outlined
successful proposals that designers had sent publishers.  In the spirit of giving to others, I’ve been
wanting to open a series of posts about successful proposals that I have done,
in the hopes that other budding designers can learn from them.
I’m also doing
it in the spirit of a Theatre Traditon (actors and stagehands and practically everyone that has something to do with the stage are big on traditions) which
is called the Post Mortem (debriefing).  Literally
“after death”, it’s a meeting after the run of a play that talks about what has
been done well, what didn’t go well, and what would be changed in the future.  Nobody’s perfect.  There’s always room to improve.
So in that
spirit, this is my proposal for Sockupied Spring 2013.
You can take a look at it here, or it is embedded below.

I actually sent
them two proposals, but one of them I’m sending out to other magazines, so I
can’t show you yet.  But I can show you
the one that got in.
Things that were
done well:

  • Big
    picture of the swatch.  Well photographed
    and in good light.  A must.
  •  Outline
    of inspiration – a fair amount of companies, I’ve found, often use the language
    from my inspiration post that I write on my proposals.  It works for me, so I keep doing it.
  •  I
    meet the design call requirements – I have my contact information, the yarn
    needed, and construction details.  I have
    a brief bio that I always use.
  • I high-lighted that this pattern works well in multicolored and solid yarns.  A lot of companies like patterns that are
    able to do this, and in this case, it made a good fit for the One Sock Two Ways
    feature in Sockupied.
  • It’s
    one page. 

Things that I could have done better:  

  • My
    drawing skills need to improve.  I could have
    made a much better drawing – and this is something I’m working to fix.  On the other hand, as long as the drawing is
    functional and conveys what you want it to convey – don’t stress out about it
    too much.  Companies are hiring a
    designer for their knit or crochet ability – not their drawing ability.
  • I
    could have used a more professional layout. This I’ve already fixed.  I hired someone shortly after I submitted this to create a logo for me, and
    later in the year I’ll be hiring the same person (Knitterella) to do layout
    design for me.   This is the first way
    many editors meet me – it always pays to present yourself well.

Have you submitted any proposals to be published?  What do you think went well?  What could have went better?

Some other pictures from our trip, because I have a deadline today

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This is a travel swift I inherited from my great-grandmother, who was a knitter, crocheter, tatter, designer (yes! she published patterns in newspapers, we have the clippings!), sewer and all around handy woman to have around.  The swift clamps to the surface, and then folds out, as you can see.  It’s not quite a tabletop swift, not quite an umbrella swift.  The best part about it though?  It all comes apart, and can be stored in a computer bag.

When I’m traveling, it makes a lot of sense for me to keep things in the skein until I need them.  So I bring the swift along, and hand ball them.  With the swift, I can hand ball something in less than ten minutes, if I had Michael hold his hands out or tried to do it off my lap, it’d be a 30 minute process, at least.

As you can see, I’ve taken over our sleeper compartment as I set things up. I got some great comments from the Sleeping Car Attendant, and also made a friend who was a knitter.

It was great, we geeked out over socks.

Well, wish me luck as I punch out the last of the pattern today.

Do you have anything that makes traveling with your yarn easier?

The Second Half of our Trip, Chicago

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After we stayed a few days in New Orleans, we trained up to Chicago, where we had the day to noodle around before we caught the last leg of the train.

It ended up being a pretty nasty day, with it alternating between snow and rain, so we didn’t do as much as planned.  But we did go out for Greek food in Greektown, and we did visit one of my favorite yarn shops in Chicago, Loopy Yarns.

This was the second time I’d been to Loopy Yarns, the first being nearly five years ago.  They are right near one of the old Chicago Train Stations, which means Michael is happy visiting there.  They’ve got great places for non-stitchers who are tagging along to hang out (I’ve begun to appreciate that more).  Their yarns are organized logically, they have a great teaching space, and they have one of my favorite ways I’ve seen of organizing needles.

This time around I got to meet the owner, who I hadn’t gotten to meet last time.

I also got to avail myself of one of my favorite aspects of the store: THEY HAVE A WHOLE ROOM DEVOTED TO BOOKS.  I would go there just to page through the books, never-mind the yarn.  They have one of the best selections of books I’ve come across in my travels, second only to Webs in Northampton, MA.

I managed to pickup The New Tunisian Crochet, which I’ve been eyeing since it came out.  (It’s worth it by the way!  Go out and get!)

I fondled several of the new yarns that are in – glad to see some of my favorites are carried even as far as Chicago.

So thank you Loopy Yarns, for making my day in Chicago better despite the weather.

Inspiration for Totem

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I am a liberal arts major, and was a straight A student throughout high school.  This was  not because I love to get good grades, but rather because I love to learn (grades were just a bonus).  I like knowing about things I had no knowledge of.

Totem has the genesis in several different ideas.  I was on the train home from one of Michael’s and my many journeys , and I had just finished Totoro, a slipped stitch pattern idea I had been playing with.  I was proud of the design, but I knew that this slipped stitch technique could be pushed father; that I could do more with it.

So I started noodling around with the leftover yarn I had from Totoro.  Because it was a highly varigated yarn, I knew I wanted a design that did a good job breaking up pooling.  The first idea wasn’t quite right, so I pulled out some more yarn and made this first swatch.

Okay, that pattern was pretty cool.  And the slipped stitches looked pretty neat.  But I didn’t think it was enough.  Was this really that different from what I did in Totoro?  I’d already done slipped stitches once, and a new pattern had to be interesting enough not only for me to knit the swatch, but different enough to be accepted as a unique pattern submission.  What else could I do?


I thought maybe I could add a cable, but I get frustrated when cables vanish in highly varigated yarns, and I wanted this to work with yarns like the one I was using.  I’d just finished reading through The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt, and I remembered that she had used another type of slipped stitch – a wrapped stitch.  Wrapped stitches would be perfect – not only would the necklace around the stitches stand out because of the yarn’s highly varigated nature, it would break up any pooling that could occur.  Sweet.

So I swatched some more, and I thought the pattern was doing well – but it was getting awfully repetitive.  Was there any way I could break it up periodically with something else?  I went back to my pinterest board to look at stitch patterns I had favorited – nothing.  So I went on Ravelry hoping that if I gave my brain a break something would pop up.

I came across a post that thesexyknitter (otherwise known as Sarah Wilson) on raverly posted about her pattern, Jon’s Sweater.  It uses slipped stitches and the lateral braid to create a wonderfully subtle texture.  I’d never heard of the lateral braid, but it looked so cool.

How hard could it be?

So I learned how to do it, using this video.

And then I added it to the pattern.

So now I had the pattern that you see here.  It has the lateral braid, the slipped stitches, the wrapped stitches, and it’s the picture that I sent to Sockupied for my proposal.

What do you think? Have you ever done a lateral braid?  How about wrapped stitches?

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