Katie Rempe: Math is magical because it turns numbers into patterns, structure into creativity, and transforms simple stitches into intricate designs, unlocking infinite possibilities in every calculation. If you're a knitter, your world may be rocked! in this episode because we are going behind the scenes to look into the magical world of designing knitting patterns with my special guest today, designer of the Chilly, dog, Ellen Thomas.
I'm so good. Thank you so much for coming onto the show.
Ellen: you for inviting me.
Katie Rempe: Light from Lantern presents Knit a Spell. I'm your host, Katie Rempe, designer, knit witch, and your companion in this magical making podcast. Together, let's explore the enchanted world where knitting meets the magic of the craft.
It has been a long time coming because we have been friends and fellow designers for a hot minute.
It might be fun to clue in our audience on how exactly we met.
Origin Story
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Ellen: Absolutely. I credit you a lot for allowing me to be doing what I'm doing every day because if it was, I really think if it was not for you, I would not be doing this still because I started designing patterns and just doing my own thing. And then. Somebody, wonderful, recognized what I was doing and asked me about yarn support and it was a thing I never had even heard of before.
I didn't even know it was a thing.
Katie Rempe: if I recall correctly, you had designed a pattern. I don't remember if it was socks out of like cobasi or something. This was back when I worked at skacel.
Ellen: Most likely .Socks.
Katie Rempe: I could just see this is a designer who has their shit together I see the numbers calculated, I see these different samples they look very organized, and I'm always looking for artists who have organization.
It is. Rare.
Ellen: Those things don't always go hand in hand. I took an art class this weekend about like non knitting stuff and it was a lot of fun and we experimented with a lot of different things that were not textile related. It But it was very much an artist class. Do whatever, it'll turn out fine. And that's fun.
But if you're following a pattern, you want clear, organized instructions that you can actually follow and be successful.
Katie Rempe: Usually people are anticipating that what they're making will turn out like the picture in that case, and when you're just in that flow state, anything that shows up is a blessing. But, if you're knitting a sweater and it turns out to be a car cover...
Ellen: exactly. You don't want to waste all your time and awesome yarn on something that's not going to work out.
Katie Rempe: That's true. So that's how we met a very kismet reach out via probably email. And I'm so glad that was like your jumping off point. I didn't realize
Ellen: Yeah.
Katie Rempe: We were your first you you were my first. You were my first. I really think that had I continued doing what I was doing, I think I would have got frustrated and quit early on.
Ellen: So thanks for reaching out. I appreciate that.
Katie Rempe: I'm glad it worked out.
Knitting As A Hobby
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Katie Rempe: So in that vein, how did you discover knitting as a hobby?
Ellen: Okay, so I am a crocheter first. I learned how to crochet before I learned how to knit and was taught by my grandma and my mom. Thank you. And then I saw knitting, but neither of them, and nobody in the family, and no friends, and nobody knew how to knit. It was like, I learned back in the olden days from, can you imagine that, a
book.
I still have, yes, the, what is it, the Reader's Digest, it's the
big book it has
Katie Rempe: how to knit or something?
Ellen: it wasn't just how to knit. It has everything in it. It has quilting
and macrame and tatting and knitting and crochet and everything. That's what I learned to knit from.
And I still refer to that book. It's the best book ever.
Katie Rempe: I'll be looking it up to add to my library. Stay tuned.
Ellen: It's like old school too. It was like published in the seventies
Katie Rempe: All right. So you taught yourself old school. How did that go?
Ellen: Slow and I'm a go big or go home person. And I decided the first thing I was going to knit was a sweater.
Because that's what you do, right? Isn't it?
Katie Rempe: If that allows you the motivation to finish, I say yes.
Ellen: I'm pretty sure I did not finish the sweater. I think I got a sleeve done and maybe the front and didn't do that. And then
I dabbled around and decided to try a smaller project and did a couple of scarves and, little things.
And then I like was an adult ish heading to college. I had no money.
I had no time. And knitting got put on the back burner for a couple decades, as I guess, so did crochet, all of it got put on the back burner for a couple decades, because I didn't have the time or money, because I was going to college, and then having a family, and raising a kid, and having a job, and doing the things we do.
And then I came back to it, when my daughter was older. And. Thought I really liked knitting. And then I did actually knit sweaters and finish them.
Katie Rempe: Maybe the patterns had changed a little bit since then, like you weren't knitting everything in pieces, perhaps.
Ellen: I'm like a throwback, I like knitting in pieces. I do not like one piece sweaters.
Katie Rempe: I should have known. Because of the fit, right?
Ellen: it's it fits so much better. It's a little bit harder to visualize. You can't just try it on as you go, but it fits way much better.
I like the structure of seams. I
don't mind seaming things together.
Katie Rempe: Hot tea, everyone. Designers actually like the things you guys like to the least.
Ellen: Yeah. I avoid one piece construction sweaters at all costs. They are not my favorite.
Katie Rempe: Yeah, I totally get it.
Designer Origins
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Katie Rempe: And so when for you did it switch from being just a hobby to well, perhaps I'll dabble in design.
Ellen: I am very much a follow my own rules type person. As much as I love the math and numbers and directions and clarity and all of that, When I am knitting something for myself, I would much rather just do my own thing than follow a pattern.
Which gave me a lot of practice in designing for
my
specific size and shape. Yeah, because I'm like, why am I even bothering changing a pattern? I'm just going to do it from scratch and then I know that I am going to get what I want and I can use the stitches I want and I can use the yarn I want and I am just going to do what I want to do. I did almost all of my knitting for an extended period was just Doing my own thing and experimenting and some things turned out really awesome.
And then there's some epic fails that the colors didn't work or the stitches didn't work or whatever. And it's all part of the process.
Katie Rempe: People are not aware of how much designers rip out their designs all the time. Or just re knitting our own patterns. I've messed up my own pattern before.
Ellen: I,
I will admit that I have done that more than once myself.
Katie Rempe: It's a great way to learn.
Ellen: yeah, so I had been doing knitting and doing my own thing for myself. And at the time, again, back in the day, everybody was doing blogs about everything.
I worked at an elementary school at the time, and like all of the teachers had mommy blogs. And that clearly was, that's not my jam. I'm not into that, but I thought, oh, yeah, If they can do a mommy blog, I can do a craft blog, because I can make anything.
Katie Rempe: There you go.
Ellen: may be not on the first attempt, but eventually, with some trial and error, I can do it. So I was doing a craft blog originally.
And, doing whatever, knitting was one of those pieces in the blog. After that, I decided that since I'm making a pattern for myself, what makes it any different to actually write it down in a written form so that other people can understand my chicken scratch notes that I do for myself.
And I think the first thing that I designed, and now I like hesitate to even use the word design, because it was, I mean it was an okay it was a very usable pattern, it was a poncho that I did with mitered squares. And it was fine and I, I had a couple of them in my own wardrobe that I wore quite frequently and it was popular. Now I'm like, oh no, that has been pulled off my site because I've like upped my game quite a bit since then.
Katie Rempe: Eventually we get beyond like just using a stitch pattern on a scarf.
Ellen: But yes, the actual design process and then you realize when you're no longer knitting for yourself, you also have to grade things so that they fit other human shapes and sizes.
So that's a whole learning curve too.
Pattern Grading Truths
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Katie Rempe: This is a great transition because pattern grading is an art. This is something that we have talked about in past episodes and one of my hot button topics because
Ellen: I, now I'm curious if your hot button topic is the same as my hot button topic, but go ahead. I want to hear yours.
Katie Rempe: okay, perhaps an unpopular opinion, but here it is. As a person who went to fashion design school, I have seen the technology that quote, allows you to grade patterns easily. It is still an extremely. Difficult, arduous process, even with the technology now. Although maybe AI has solved that. Who knows?
Ellen: It hasn't.
Katie Rempe: Because it's an art, right?
And so I would see them grading these different sizes. And if anyone's ever looked at like a sewing pattern, you can get the idea too. The sizes are not even. Not everything is oh, this size is a half inch more everywhere. Eventually, it comes to the same measurement on all sizes for most things.
And what knitting designers are doing, I tend to find, are doing a standardized incremental situation as opposed to seeing how the body actually grows, and thus, it is a Effort to make it more accessible to more sizes, which is great, however, is the fit successful in all of those sizes and the same? I don't know.
Not in my experience.
Ellen: You just summarized my hot button issue. I'm glad that I'm not alone in that with the math involved in it. it's easy to see if you have sewn in the past, like you said, A sewing pattern when you're going old school and cutting out the pieces, there are certain spots where everything comes together at the same point, no matter what size you are.
You don't see that in knitting patterns because you are only knitting one size, not all of them, so you can't lay them all out next to each other or on top of each other and see that. There are oftentimes mathematical constraints. It's not just a matter of why you can't grade something in certain sizes or at certain increments. If your stitch pattern is across a certain number of stitches, you can only possibly grade in that increment. You
can't make it one inch if the stitch pattern is wider than one inch.
It's not just a matter of adding more stitches or subtracting stitches
Katie Rempe: Yes.
Ellen: have heard that complaint. Before from people and saying, I wish you'd graded for more sizes, different sizes, whatever. You could have just added some more stitches or you could have just taken away some stitches. You can't.
Katie Rempe: In some instances, Perhaps you can. But in many instances, like you said, there are so many variables that people don't even know to think about that it's just not possible successfully without it being so complicated or really, I think certain sizes are like totally different. Product markets because not everyone grows in the same area, So on one hand that is the power of knitting, right?
You can be motivated to learn how to do the technique of knitting See how patterns are put together like you did and then say okay. I have found that consistently I have needed X or wanted X. I'm going to figure out how to do that now. And now you have the ability to magically create your own custom clothing.
But most people are scared to do this.
Ellen: It's because they're scared to rip out stuff and fail. My husband teases me quite a bit because I rip out at least as much, half as much as I knit gets ripped out and I try again because it just doesn't work for whatever reason.
Katie Rempe: This helps you curate your knitter's instincts. So that when you're knitting along and all of a sudden you're like Just feel like this hat's turning out small. And then you finish it and you're like, huh? It's small.
Ellen: and I'll tack on to your hot button topic. One more hot button.
Is that knitters seem to not just want it graded for every possible shape and size, but you should be able to knit it with any weight of yarn too. Have you had anybody contact you and say, why isn't this? In sock weight, and worsted weight, and fort weight, and all the things.
Katie Rempe: I have had people Reach out with that and then sometimes I'm like, that is a that actually is a good idea I probably could do that. But in but most cases It's not just as easy as we'll just put it in this pattern, and put the size down on the needle, or up, and it'll be fine, it'll be fine.
If only, people, if only.
Ellen: it's those mathematical constraints.
Katie Rempe: Exactly, and that's often the reason you'll see Oh, this person's fingering weight cardigan, and now that same design in worsted weight as a separate pattern, because it is in fact, Two separate patterns.
Ellen: Yes it
Katie Rempe: Entirely different mathings.
Ellen: Entirely different math things, I like that.
Ellen the Engineer!
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I don't have a strong mathing background.
Katie Rempe: So for me, the math of knitting is difficult. Where did your love of numbers come? Cause you, in my eyes, are the perfect tech editor.
Ellen: It happened because I have a degree in mechanical engineering. You didn't know that!
Katie Rempe: that'll do it.
Ellen: I was able to surprise you with something. Yeah my, I think, not that I use, I have never used my degree in its true mechanical engineering form. I've dabbled in a lot of other things. However it gave me more than enough math to design and edit knitting patterns.
It's more about the problem solving, how to approach problem solving, because that's really all you're doing with engineering is you're solving a problem. You're solving a problem by creating something, building something, designing something.
It's all in there.
Katie Rempe: we should have had a mechanical engineering design of fashion or something.
Ellen: And I'll tell you part one, probably the best class, maybe not the best one of the classes that I enjoyed the most in college. Yeah. It wasn't so much about the design process, although I like that again, the problem solving, it was a technical writing, took two semesters of technical writing, and you're not just solving the problem.
Now you're telling somebody else how to solve the problem. So how to build something, how to put something together. How to program something and that also gives you a different way of thinking about things because it is very different doing something yourself and knowing how to do it and being able to describe that to somebody else so that they can do it.
Katie Rempe: Yes. It's like leveling up your skill. I think, isn't there a saying, like if you can teach someone else how to do it, then you're like an expert at it or something
Ellen: Yeah.
Katie Rempe: So there you go. Expert. That's so interesting so I went to school for fashion design, but it was technical fashion design.
What that means is just like you said, instead of being the person who draws the pretty picture and then is go make the thing. I was the person that would be like, okay, you make the thing like, okay, now I have this photo. I guess I have to figure out like what pattern pieces would actually go into constructing this.
And then What would the steps be and what are the order of those steps and all that fun stuff like the trim packs and all these things. So details that a lot of people I think find tedious and boring that really lit me up.
Ellen: Yes.
Katie Rempe: Like you said, it's like
Ellen: Solving the problem and figuring out how everything is related the relationships between things.
Katie Rempe: So fun.
GAUGE!
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Katie Rempe: And so in that, let's talk a little bit about Gauge. Is it
Ellen: hot button topic!
Katie Rempe: Is it really that important? Cause I'm always on gauge.
Ellen: Oh, of course you are! I'll tell you my secret. My secret is there have been times that I have knit my own pattern in the same yarn that I recommend on the exact same needles that I have recommended, and I do not get my own gauge.
So whenever somebody writes to me and tells me, oh, I always get gauged, they are lying liars.
Either that, or they don't realize it can't be true.
Katie Rempe: They've been incredibly lucky by really not accurately measuring this whole time.
Ellen: And it's funny. You've been knitting a while. How often do you see the gauge, you knit a swatch, and you can make it fit that gauge with a little bit of a tug or
Katie Rempe: Spread it out a little. Oops. Sorry. No, squish it in a little is what I meant. There you go.
Ellen: So I audited a class with Kyle from Makers Mercantile, and he was, I forget what he was even knitting, but the, he said the most inspiring thing, and I like repeat it all the time now, when I am teaching, that when people say, I don't want to knit a gauge swatch, and he said, Everybody knits a gauge swatch.
You either knit a 4 inch square gauge swatch or you knit a sweater sized gauge swatch. And that was like, yes, that is so true. It is so true. So I use that all the time. Everybody knits a gauge swatch. It's either a small one or a sweater sized one.
Katie Rempe: gosh.
Ellen: you want something that fits, knit the small one.
It's a lot easier before you knit the sweater sized one.
Katie Rempe: That's what I always used to tell people. Do I have to do a gauge? Only if you want it to fit.
Ellen: Only if you want it to fit. Only if you want it to fit. Here's one, something I learned that I didn't really recognize until I started spinning too, because I spin yarn. The thing that I did not recognize until I became a spinner was that you can get gauge with different yarns. You can get the same gauge with a different needle and yarn combo, but If you're using a yarn that has a different structure, if you are using a 3 ply opposed to a 4 ply, or if the twist is a little bit tighter or looser, even if you have two gauge swatches that are exactly the same, the fabric will not feel the same.
They may end up the same size at the end, but they will not feel the same. They will not drape on your body the same. They will not stretch the same. That was my lesson learned.
Katie Rempe: Almost everything can affect your gauge, including like you said the fiber, you do one in a cotton versus a wool, that's going to have a much different outcome. And like you said, just because you got the gauge, okay but do you like the fabric? Like maybe you got it, but it's real flimsy and loose.
And you're like, Ooh, maybe this isn't the right yarn for that.
But to a designer, the gauge swatch is like the key to everything. You can design your entire garment just from this ish. The thing that nobody wants to do, we can build the whole pattern from just this.
Ellen: Okay. So I have a question for you. So
when I am designing, I knit my gauge swatch. Like you just said, you can design the whole thing with the math based on that gauge swatch. Do you write everything out first and do the math first?
Granting when I am designing, I typically will write out the entire pattern, graded everything before I knit anything more than my gauge swatch.
Katie Rempe: I sort of do both.
Ellen: Okay.
Katie Rempe: I write a loose pattern, like on all the points that I wanna do, and then inevitably I discover things that need to be worked into those parts that I haven't put in. So I allow some shifting room. But generally I'm more of like a. Not knit as you design, but confirm knit as you design.
rip out a lot because I have a crappy method of designing. Ineffective. Inefficient.
Ellen: It's a process. You have to have some sort of process.
Katie Rempe: Yeah, and you have a good process.
Intentional Design
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Katie Rempe: Here's a question for you. We have all of these things. We're knitting, we're spinning, you're weaving, you're doing so many things. How would you rate your level of intentionality with your work?
Ellen: I'm going to say an eight because. I do try to be very intentional in how I blend different elements of whatever I am making, whether it's the fiber content or the stitch pattern. I like to think that I am very intentional about how everything goes together.
Katie Rempe: Do you ever think oh, I want to feature these skills, so I better design a pattern based on that?
Ellen: It all happens at once. I need a lot of think time before I put anything on paper. And usually I have a few yarns running through my mind that I may want to try to play with and see what they do. I may have some stitch patterns that are intriguing that I want to work into something. I may have some shaping methods. Socks are my specialty. So I may
have different shaping methods.
Katie Rempe: Thanks.
Ellen: Socks happens because we lived in Arizona for so long there's not a lot of need to wear a sweater or a shawl or a scarf or any of that, but socks, I wear them every day. And they're
small when it's 110 degrees outside, I can still knit a pair of socks without breaking a sweat.
Katie Rempe: Okay. That makes sense.
Ellen: yeah. But no, all of the different elements are like going through my head and then it's trying to figure out how to Take all the different pieces and put them together into one cohesive pattern with a series of videos that go with it that are helpful and that people will want to make, hopefully, and learn something as they're going along.
Ignore Skill Levels
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Katie Rempe: Seems like that's one of the biggest benefits of your patterns is you really set knitters up to succeed and anticipate those needs ahead of time, which I think is really the mark of a great designer.
Ellen: I try. Is this a pet peeve of your skill levels.
Katie Rempe: Oh, yes. I was just talking about that yesterday.
Ellen: Okay, yes, skill levels bother me I don't like assigning beginner intermediate or expert, because it is I truly believe if it's something that you want to make, you will sit down and put in the effort to learn what you need to learn. Will you learn it all instantly? No. Will the first project always be a success? Not necessarily, but you will learn what you need to learn to make something if you want to. I try to make it so that my patterns are, if you already have the skills. You could just sit down and follow the pattern. But if maybe you either need a little refresher because some of the skills, maybe you don't use every day. There's a resource there for you to turn to, or if it's something that's completely new to you, there's a resource there that you can learn as you go.
Katie Rempe: I think that is beautiful. You are only limited by your own beliefs. So as soon as you bump up against intermediate, you're like, Oh, I just learned. I don't, I'm not intermediate. Of course I'm not. But it is so funny. So a friend of mine was saying she wants to finally learn how to knit. And I said, Amazing.
Wonderful. She said, please help me with resources. I said, great, what do you want to learn? How to knit? What do you want to knit? And she said a sock or sweater. And I said, okay, great. And just like you said, I said, that will be your biggest motivating factor to learn because you want that thing at the end.
Whereas if you learn like a washcloth or a scarf,
Ellen: you're so bored. Yeah, those are, you maybe get bored with project number one because it's not exciting to you and you're done.
Katie Rempe: And you don't even care what it comes out as. Okay, great, this is just a thing to learn on. Nobody wants that. Cast on the sweater and figure it out then. Like Kyle said, swatch it and see your progress of how it was really uneven initially and now it's quite even by the end.
You'll never be able to knit like that again.
Ellen: I know. It's true.
Number Fun!
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Katie Rempe: Would you say you have a favorite number?
Ellen: Maybe not a favorite number, but I have a number that I am curious about. I inherited my grandfather's rug loom, and he built it. It wasn't just like he used it. He built it. And it had been in storage for a number of years before I acquired it. So I took it completely apart because it was dirty and dusty and nasty, cleaned it, and put it back together.
And as I was taking it apart, I found writing on it that he wrote notes to himself about building it. And I found the number 13 in multiple places on the loom. And
not just on the loom, but he built shuttles to hold your weft yarn or weft fabric. And there was the number 13 on A bunch of those as well. And I thought that was weird and I'm trying to. I could not figure out why it was there.
Katie Rempe: I'm sure anyone who has built a loom or a rug loom like that maybe will have like, oh, yeah, 13 is like the perfect measurement for this and that and
Ellen: Yeah, I could not find any relationship for it, and it, like I said, it was in inconsistent places throughout, so I don't know.
Maybe it was His favorite number, maybe he just wrote it down on things, I don't know.
Katie Rempe: Yeah, maybe it's a B, and it's just like a real loose.
In the tarot the number 13 card is death, so maybe completion. So maybe it could be like, this loom, you'll always finish everything that you put on there.
Ellen: Okay. So then on the dark, it's not dark because it's just a part of life. So I, he had his last weaving was on the loom when I got it.
So, and I also, there were a bunch of shuttles that came with it that actually still had stuff wrapped on them. So I know what the last one he held was because it matches the fabric that was on the loom. It had the number 13 on it.
Katie Rempe: Ooh. Ooh.
I love this. I get in the chills. Ooh, alright perhaps this is the place where you can commune with this ancestral spirit
Ellen: there.
you go.
Katie Rempe: So powerful. Have you finished that yet, is it just staying there for a while?
Ellen: I took his weaving off the loom. There was only about this much on there and then just tons and tons of string
that had sat in a basement for 35
years. So it was not workable.
However, when I cut his, the finished piece that he did off the loom, I washed it and I have it saved.
At some point it is going to be an art piece
and I took all the stuff that was off the shuttles. off and I washed it. I have incorporated a couple of the fabrics into things I wove for myself and I have the one that was the fabric that was the last one he used. I right now it's, I put it back on the same shuttle and it is hanging in my studio on the wall as like an inspiration,
Katie Rempe: yeah. Little tribute.
Ellen: Little tribute.
And at some point I might do something with it, but I like it just in its, the unfinished state.
Katie Rempe: Always there to help and inspire and get into whatever you're getting into. Oh, that's so nice. We are very lucky as crafters to have the opportunity to incorporate such meaningful things. In ways that people probably wouldn't otherwise, or maybe they would just get thrown away or packed in a box and never looked at.
So hopefully this inspires people to look at things a little differently and see how they can incorporate it like into their knitting.
Let's just do one more question here before we wrap things up and do our card poll.
Why Finish?
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Katie Rempe: Our culture is all about buying more and starting new projects. At one point you didn't have much of a stash and you weren't much of a person who had a lot of whips in your queue.
Can you explain the magic of actually Buckling down to finish a project. Can you inspire me and listeners?
Ellen: I will inspire you. First, I will start by saying that having too many projects going at once stresses me out. To no end. I feel like I have all these unfinished things, and there's so many of them that I don't want to tackle any of them, and then none of them get finished. I learned that about myself very early on, not just with knitting, but with life in general.
I can't have too much going on. I need simplicity. I live now in Alabama in a very agricultural region. So when I'm driving home, I pass the cows and I pass the cotton fields. and there's a cycle and a season to the whole process of agriculture. It's like that for knitting too, because you start a project or plant the seed, and then you work on it, and it grows, and then you harvest it, and then you get to use it. And then you get to start your next project . And it's nice being able to get through that entire cycle and process and feel all the feels and learn all the things and go through that. for me, starting new projects would be like planting the seed and then letting it wither and die in the corner. If I have 10 projects going at once, I've planted all those seeds and they're just sitting over there withering and dying and I can't. I need to feel that fulfillment and go through the entire process before I can move on to the next
Katie Rempe: A smart way to look at it, like they're all living, breathing things because they are, right? Putting energy into them or helping them grow, like you said. Shaping them. Maybe it's a gift. Wouldn't it be nice to actually get the thing you wanted at some point?
Ellen: That would be good.
Katie Rempe: And as a person who loves to knit and will often quit as soon as I have figured out the mystery of your pattern. This is a good reminder to, again push through that moment of boredom to re ignite in the finishing because it's better than starting a project is finishing a project.
Ellen: Yes, Absolutely. Absolutely. Although, As I'm getting near the end and getting close to finishing, I'm thinking about what is the next thing.
Katie Rempe: that's
Ellen: So that as soon as I'm done, there is something else going on the needles or something else going on the loom, like immediately after I'm done with the first thing.
Katie Rempe: That's just good motivation and forward thinking.
Color of the Week
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Katie Rempe: Let's wrap up our episode with a little card poll here to see what color could offer us some advice for the upcoming week. Oh, so here we have soft sage.
And it's color number 45. If you're a, again, like a numerological type of a person. How does this color make you feel?
Ellen: It's all fresh and growing, right?
Katie Rempe: I'm into it, this is like October when this will go out, you don't always think of it as the growing season, but for knitters, it is, because this is when we get back into knitting like in earnest, wouldn't
Ellen: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's been way, way too hot here to even think about knitting stuff.
Katie Rempe: Thank you so much for joining me, Ellen. This is so much fun.
Ellen: Thank you.
Katie Rempe: Anyone who has always had an idea that maybe they'd like to be a designer, perhaps they've learned a couple of things in this episode.
Follow The Chilly Dog!
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Katie Rempe: Where can people get more information about you, more about your amazing online knitting community, all of those good things.
Ellen: You can find me the easiest at theChilly,dog. com. And it's not like the Chilly, dog you eat, it's like Burr Chilly, so it's the Chilly, dog. And from there you can explore my website or sign up for my newsletter, find the shop, find videos. So that's the best place. And if you just want to learn something new, learn one thing new today, I'm the Chilly, Dog on YouTube.
Katie Rempe: Awesome.
Ellen: Tons of stuff you can find.
Katie Rempe: What about your online community?
Ellen: The special thing about the online community is that you can watch all, I think I have close to 300 videos now,
tutorials. You can watch them without ads or interruptions at your own pace. You can explore whatever you want on your own, cast ons, bind offs, and everything in between. Or I started putting together skill sets so that you can learn, maybe four, five, six particular skills that logically go together in some way.
Katie Rempe: Beautiful curated experience through our favorite designer, Ellen of the Chilly, Dog. Yay! I'll make sure to link everything in the description so that our listeners and watchers can learn and follow up with you. Thank you again for being here.
And remember, be creative. Listeners, watchers, we aren't done.
Join me, us, on Patreon, where we are going to be doing the after show, carrying on with all sorts of fun knitting and witchiness and extraness that you don't want to miss out on. Just 5 a month can unlock all of the bonuses and extra benefits that we have ever had, so come and join us over on Patreon.
Ellen: Yay! Yay!
Katie Rempe: All right, until next week everyone. We'll see you then. Bye!
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