Creating our Winter Capsule Collection presented another wonderful opportunity to collaborate with our good friend Amy Opie of A.Opie Designs. Once again, the fact that Amy lives in Alabama and we live in Michigan didn’t hamper our collective creativity, nor the wonderful comradery we’ve developed. No matter the distance, it is always a joy to see how knitting can bring us together.
As you will see, Amy’s great sense of color and her charm shine through in her Fairview hat. We love how the rotation of color offers a variety of coordinated hats, maximizes yarn usage, and minimizes remnants. Thank you, Amy, for another truly great collaboration!
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Amy, we invite you to read on!
Q. What inspired your fabulous Fairview hat for our Winter Collection?
I wanted to design a color work project that was mindful of yarn waste while appealing to gift knitting’s need for smaller projects. However, using multiple colors in a small item generates quite a bit of leftover yarn. I challenged myself to create something that minimizes the remnants and still satisfied my love of using multiple colors, so I designed a hat where the colors were interchangeable. Each hat is distinctive yet harmonizes with the others. 4 skeins, 4 colors...4 hats!
Q. How did you go about selecting the bases and colors?
Q. Are you inspired more by color or by yarn type?
Q. Among all of the color kits, do you have some personal favorites?
Q. When you design your patterns, do you draw inspiration from any particular style icons?
Q. How would you describe your own style?
Q. What’s the most rewarding part about designing?
I really do love seeing what others knit with my patterns. It’s very flattering to scroll through social media and see what people have made! If someone knits more than one...it’s the ultimate compliment.
Q. What do you have in the works for holiday gift knitting this year?
Spoiler alert... everyone in the Opie family is getting a hat! Oh... and homemade baked goods... because that precedent has been well established!