Hey Y'all,
Today we continue our series of profiles of the designers who contributed their knit genius to the latest Hill Country Weavers' pattern book, Musings from Mercury Hall. This time around, we're checking in with Patricia Kalthoff, who created the stunning Blue Gene's pattern. She is Texknitter on Ravelry.
How
long have you been knitting?
I have been knitting in earnest for something over 25
years. My grandmother taught me
left-handed/mirror image knitting when I was 13, but it didn’t stick. I don’t
think you can really tell any new knitter to reverse everything and expect good
results. I kept on wanting to knit though, and came back to it with one of
those little How-to books when I was in my 20’s. At that point I learned right-handed
and had no problems. Now I knit right, left, combination or continental;
whichever suits my needs at the time.
Your
favorite part of knitting?
My favorite part of knitting is collecting techniques.
There are so many different ways to achieve the results you want, some visible
and some that only the knitter will ever know about. As a technique junkie, I
love having lots of options to choose from; it keeps me interested as I knit.
What
got you into design?
As a largely self-taught knitter, it really never occurred
to me that I couldn’t just knit whatever I saw in my mind’s eye. I was
fortunate that I found Elizabeth Zimmermann and Jackie Fee (author of The
Sweater Workshop) very early in my knitting life, so I never had a fear of
taking an idea and running with it. My first published design came about after I designed a
vest for one of my daughters.
Looking at the finished piece I knew that it was as good as some I had
seen published, so I called Meg Swansen at Schoolhouse Press to ask about
putting a self-published pattern on the Plugs page of Wool Gathering. She
suggested that I submit it to Knitter’s magazine. The published vest ended up
being very different from my toddler piece, but had many of the same techniques
in the knitting.
What inspired your Blue Gene's pattern for Mercury Hall Musings?
Every day I
look down at my Blue Willow dishes and marvel at all the patterns in them. This
piece is my homage to that, and is designed to be flexible in length to use
every bit of a precious yarn.
Will
you describe your process?
Most of the time I am inspired by things I see around me,
anything from landscapes to textures to colors to dishes. My family has gotten
used to waiting for me to snap knitting file pictures on my phone everywhere we
go. Often when I am inspired by something I will immediately “see” the finished
piece of knitting, and then I have to find a way to make it work.
Any
funny knitting stories?
Many years ago, when basic printers still cost about $200,
my darling husband started looking at $600 printers. When I asked why we
couldn’t get by with a $200 one, he looked me square in the eye and said, “Knit
acrylic.” We might have bought the
$600 printer that same day.
What
do you do by day?
I am a former tax accountant who left to stay home with the
kids. Along the way I started to teach knitting, both in a yarn shop setting
and at regional festivals such as the Taos Wool Festival and the Wool Market at
Estes Park. Now that my children are in college I am looking at my options,
both in and out of the fiber world. One path I am considering is
self-publishing my work; Newpark Designs will be named for the grandmother who
first taught me to knit.
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