An Interview with Kennedy!

Hey Y'all,

Kennedy has been helping folks out down at HCW for nearly a year now. Recently, she attended her first TNNA -- aka Market-- with Suzanne. I caught up with her to ask about her life as a knitter and spinner, her work at the store, her trip to market, and her design work.

How long have you been knitting/what brought you to knitting?

I learned when I was younger but I didn't really take it anywhere back then. I think my parents might even have this awful afghan I did one summer when I was about ten in a basement somewhere, but it wasn't until maybe six or seven years ago that I really got into it. My mom had started knitting and dragged me to a yarn store with her and suddenly I realized I could actually make stuff more complicated than a square and that there was a huge variety of yarn out there to play with.

You've got a lovely design, Bouteloua, in the soon-to-be-released HCW Prairie Bliss pattern book-- what's your experience with designing? Are you self-taught? Does it come easy to you?

Thanks, I'm really proud of Bouteloua. I guess designing is something that just comes naturally. I've always tweaked patterns to make them work for me and after knitting for awhile I would just kind of make something up when I couldn't find a pattern that fit what I wanted. I haven't had a lot of experience with pattern writing until recently though. I've been really lucky here in Austin to have a great group of people around me that are willing to proof and test my designs and I've learned so much about the work goes into translating an idea into something that someone else can also make.

You went to Market with Suzanne in June—what was that like?

Market was INSANE. There is so much to see and its pretty overwhelming. A lot of me wanted to go slow and really take in all the new yarn and accessories and really think of what kind of things I'd use them for but its a huge number of booths you have to get through in such a small window of time so you just sort of have to take away a really fast impression of everything. Besides all of that you turn around and randomly there's like... Cat Bordhi or Amy Singer or someone talking to you. It was especially fun to have the Hill Country Weavers badge on and it seemed like everyone knew the shop and Suzanne.

What classes do you teach at HCW and what kind of teacher are you (e.g. hand-holder or push-'em-from-the-nest or super cheerleader, etc?)

I teach spinning and I've done some lace & dyeing classes. I try to be flexible and figure out what people need from me to learn something. I like to present things broadly to a group and then figure out individually what parts each person needs help with.

Do you have a particular project and/or yarn that you find yourself returning to repeatedly?

Not really, I would always rather try something new than do something again so there aren't that many things I make more than once unless I plan to heavily modify it in some way. I have a lot of yarns that I have loved and would love to work with again but like with patterns given the choice between new and old I'll usually try something new. This year I have been really into Dream in Color's new Everlasting yarns. I've got a sweater out of the DK weight on the needles plus socks and a shawl out of the fingering weight in progress.

Favorite thing you've ever knitted?

Probably my Haruni Shawl. I spun the yarn for it as well and it was one of those projects where everything about it just felt good. I was actually kind of sad to finish it but I love wearing the finished shawl so...

What's coming up on your To Knit list?

Mostly I just want to finish things again! I've been in a bad startitis kick lately - I think after market I just came home with so many ideas and I've been trying to do them all at once. I'm about to cast on for the Morrison Cardigan from the new Knitscene though so maybe I have a few more to start before I can settle down again.