Lialykke
– Tell us a little bit about yourself!
I’m Julia, or Lia, 26 years old and a Dane living in Northern Germany by the sea.
– How would you describe the new design?
I love scandinavian simplicity and the design should represent that. My goal was to create a piece that I will get a lot of use out of – so every stitch is worth it at the end, also for others, as I hope.
The sweater has a short fit with slouchy sleeves that taper in at the wrist so that they don’t get in the way of doing stuff with your hands – like knitting 😉 Classic raglan sweaters are flattering for most people and easy to knit, but the wide sleeves and the doubled collar give the sweater a little edge – and a lot of cosiness.
– What inspired you to make this design?
When WAK asked me, if I would design a piece for the collection I was laying at the beach on Sardinia. That was a good thing because otherwise I probably would have fainted.
I was inpired by the designs of my favourite, mostly scandinavian, knitting designers that I’ve knitted a lot of designs from in the past and my own favourite vintage sweater I got from a flea market.
– What do you do and where do you go to seek artistic inspiration?
I’m an architect and have been working in the field for 3 years, but have been interested in my surroundings since I was a little girl. My creativity has always found different ways to be expressed and has gone through different phases. I’ve had phases with lots of drawing, crocheting, music, woodwork, but what stuck with me the longest is the knitting, of course 😉 Knitting beeing such a trend nowadays and not beeing a weird and boring thing to do is so wonderful – there’s inspiration and fabulous designs everywhere now! In the Instagram-community I’ve developed a specific “style” through my choice of my favourite colour – copper. I like everything to be cohesive and get a lot of inspiration through scandinavian furniture and fabrics from the 60s which I have included many pieces of in my interior.
– If you had to use one word to describe your designs, what would it be?
That’s a hard question. Probably “simple”, but I would not only use this term in my knitting, but also with regard to my job.
– Aside from your inclusion in the WAK collection this spring, what does 2020 hold for you?
I’m moving to a bigger apartment (aka. more space for more yarn) so I’m excited to live there through 2020 and ongoing. Also I’m planning a vacation overseas and finally seeing some of the buildings I’ve worked on since I’ve started my job as an architect to come to life – that’s a design process that unfortunately takes a lot more time than picking up the needles. And loooots knitting – of course!
VaskavullaKnit Thea Rytter
– Tell us a little bit about yourself! I’m 31 years old and self taught knitter and knitwear designer. I live in a small town in Denmark with my husband, three kids and a puppy 🙂
– How would you describe the new design? The new design is the classic v-neck meeting the chunky modern yarn. I wanted to make a design you could wear both with a shirt under at work and at home on a lazy sunday.
– What inspired you to make this design? I had some guidelines from WAK about the idea of the collection. I wanted to make a sweater that everyone could knit and was quite inspired by an old fisherman’s rib pattern I had recently seen, but since the fisherman’s rib can be very time consuming and is not total beginner level I came up with the garter stitch/knit rib, which has the same look with every stitch very defined, but still is totally it’s own.
– What do you do and where do you go to seek artistic inspiration? I have a master of arts in Danish language and Film and Media, and when I don’t knit I work in the publishing industry. I find inspiration everywhere but usually I’m inspired by shapes, new techniques and structure – and sometimes the yarn itself. I also get a lot of inspiration watching movies and looking ind old books and so forth. I have a large Pinterest board of course and a lot of drawing books.
– If you had to use one word to describe your designs, what would it be? If this interview where in Danish I’d go with “aha-oplevelse”; directly translated to “aha experience” which describes the feeling you get when you understand something you did not before like “aaaah now I understand”. A small epiphany in other words or an eye opener (which has it’s own word in Danish too). But since that word does not exist in English I’ll just go with “fun”. I know none of the words describe the look of my entire design portfolio, but as a knitwear designer the look goes hand in hand with the way the pattern is written and there fore the experience when you knit the design. And I want to make designs that are eye opening and fun to knit.
– Aside from your inclusion in the WAK collection this spring, what does 2020 hold for you? I’ve had quite a hectic 2019 with a lot of collaborations, work shops and so forth… And I think my 2020 will be a lot like that as well. Hopefully I’ll also have time to finish my third book and I know I’m gonna make a lot of patterns for both magazines and my own website.
