Knit & Knag Designs

A couple of months ago, I showed a picture of me hard at work on the front steps of our house.  I don’t actually always do my work outside.  Sometimes my setup looks more like this:

There’s the laptop, of course.  The iPad, on which I load all my patterns and then take around with me everywhere I go.  It’s got a permanent spot in my knitting bag.  I knit just about everything straight from the digital version, and then (if it’s my patterns in progress) mark up the patterns as I go.  I also use those old fashioned things known as graph-paper and pencils.  Usually in the really early stages of the design, while I’m figuring out shaping, construction, and while creating some new stitch-patterns.

For any knitwear designer, yarn and needles are a must.  You’re never really sure what it’s going to look like until you knit up a swatch or sample.

And last but not least – the tea cup.  I think better when I have tea.  Since I was about 10 years old, I have been drinking copious amounts of tea on a daily basis.  I brew pot after pot, and enjoy my tea as I’m reading the newspaper in the morning, while I’m designing, while I’m knitting, in the afternoon, in the evenings…… in short, all day long.    Of course, as any tea-connosoir, I’m picky about my tea.  My current favourite tea is a black tea from Ceylon that I buy in an Arab grocery store nearby, and drink with milk.  At the cottage, I also drink a fair amount of Yerba Maté, as I like maté both hot and cold (and lukewarm too) – so it saves me from running back and forth between the dock and the cottage to heat more tea or get another splash of milk.  I can just make a big batch and bring it down to the lake.