Friday, May 22, 2009

Indie Designer Day

Cattrack CowlDesigner: Chris Church
Website: Pursuit of Fiber
Rav ID: rchrispy
Some Great Designs: rchrispy's Rav Designer Page

As promised last Friday, we've got the second half of a partnership designing duo: rchrispy!

First, her own designs.
Pictured right is her Cattrack Cowl, with a colourwork technique that blew my mind (that is, it's the twined knitting technique which uses two ends from the opposite sides of the ball of yarn). Very cool, right? But, adding to this work's coolness is the wee design inspiration description(I love those!) rchrisy added to the pattern page:
"Have you ever looked down at the ground at a groomed ski trail at a resort? Well this cowl has the same marks left by the Sno-Cats that groom the more advanced trails here in the Northwest."

After checking out her other designs, I wasn't surprised to find out that she'd graduated from art school focusing on fiber. Take for example the Squiggle Cowl. With what I believe to be a pretty pretty1 and innovative use of shaping she's created "dips" in the front and back to help maintain warmth and block out drafts.

Any of you able to go the the TNNA show? Some exciting late-breaking news from rchrispy is that she'll have a piece in the fashion show with a local company. How cool is that?!

And now, you've got to check out another cool innovation.
Partnership designing!

Jonquil Mom and rchrispy have two patterns up on rav, and they're both an interesting combination of each designer's aesthetics. The Holland Cowl and Holland Neckwarmer fuse Jonquil Mom's neat-o cables and rchrispy's tidy designs to create a synthesized style that's fascinating to witness.
There's more to come from these two designers; I have it on good authority that there's a men's cabled sweater in the works which will hopefully be out by Christmas.
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1 Ain't I a stinker? Sad attempts at word play can't seem to stop crawling out of my head!

2 comments:

Team Knit said...

that is a seriously awesome cowl! Love the colourwork.

- Julie

Hilary said...

I had the pleasure of meeting chrispy herself at Stitches West this year. Not only is she a great designer, she's also a very cool person! I LOVE her cowls, and I think she may also have something pretty and green in the works...