Meet Designer Susan Fricks!

Welcome to another installment of Meet Your Designers. Today, a chat with Susan Fricks, owner of Yarnorama in Paige, Texas, and designer of the THREADGILLS woven wine and gift bags in our Musings from Mercury Hall collection. Susan’s Ravelry handle is FiberObsessions and her FB page is right here.

HCW: How long have you been knitting?

SF: Since I was 5 years old, and then off and on until my early 20's, when I became completely obsessed.

HCW: Your favorite part of knitting?

SF: Planning my next project, tied with finishing a current project

HCW: What got you into design?

SF: The Vogue Book of Knitting – it was all about how to made the sweater you want to make, with different shapes, nets, pockets, stitch patterns, you name it. It was very empowering!

HCW: Will you describe your pattern process and or knitting process?

SF: I get an inspiration, in this case wine and gift bags. Then, I think about the fabric... Drapey, interesting texture, fast, last-minute gift project. That takes me to yarn choices. The luscious Prism hand-dyed bamboo/cotton yarn in a worsted weight seemed to have all the qualities I wanted, plus it is so elegantly beautiful.

I wondered if the bags would be almost too soft and drapey, potentially falling down, and I wanted them to stand the test of time, so decided to combine the Prism yarn with Euroflax, a high-quality linen with good body and sheen. Finally, I love lace, I loved the notion of the bags revealing the slightest hint of their contents via the textured weave. Thus, the bags were born. From that point, it was all math, and then, of course, the pleasure of weaving and assembly!

HCW: Any funny knitting stories?

SF: Can't think of any, but have lots of knitting tantrum stories!