The magic of turning an idea into reality with Clare Mountain-Manipon

Hello and welcome back to series two of the Why I

Knit podcast. My name is Dr Mia Hobbs and I'm a clinical

psychologist who's passionate about knitting and its benefits

for our mental wellbeing. Each episode I interview a different

knitter about why they knit and how it benefits their mental

health. This week on the podcast, I'm joined by Clare

Mountain-Manipon, also known as Sister Mountain. Clare is a

pattern designer who has developed her own Sweater Design

School where she is a mentor for other people embarking on their

journey as knitting pattern designers.

Hi Clare, welcome to the podcast.

Hello! Thank you for having me.

You're very welcome. It's really nice to see you

again! Because we met... I was trying to think how many years

ago we met at the Loop Knit Night.

I would say maybe four... five years

ago. It was a while ago, I think!

It was a while ago. Yeah, I think my kids were quite

small.

I know. And now I have my own kid!

[Laughs]

Yes! How many months is he?

He is nearly nine months. He'll be

nine months next week. He's growing at an alarming rate.

And how has he affected your ability to do any

knitting?

I would say it is significantly reduced,

sadly. But obviously worth it. I would say I'm lucky if I get

half an hour in the evening, if that. There are some days when I

am so absolutely exhausted and all I have energy for is just to

flop on the couch. But I do try, because I know how much it makes

me feel good when I knit. I do try to make time for it every

evening.

Yeah, okay. So I usually start with asking where

your story with knitting began. So where did yours start, Clare?

Well, I learnt to knit when I was a

really young child. It was kind of that typical story. My

grandma knits. She taught me to knit. I knit little teddy bear

scarves and things like that. And then there was one Christmas

or New Year that my family was going on a hiking holiday, and I

was at that age where I was like, "I don't want to go on a

hiking holiday. I'm going to go stay with my grandma." I was in

my early teens, probably like 13 at the time or something. And I

went to stay with her for about a week, and she knit a jumper

with me. So I chose the yarn, and it was like a chunky yarn,

and it had intarsia on the front. Now, I had absolutely no

idea how to do intarsia. I'm one of those knitters (I've always

been that type, I think) where I'm just like, "Yeah, I'll just

figure it out." I've never been afraid of skill levels. I

decided to knit this intarsia jumper. It was absolutely not

intarsia, in that I did it completely incorrectly. I think

I kind of did standard colourwork in a very strange

fashion on there. Not even like traditional. I think I was

wrapping it behind every stitch. I don't even know. But either

way, I ended up with a jumper, and then the love affair just

blossomed and I was knitting every day all throughout my

teens. I ended up studying fashion knitwear design at

university and went to work in the professional knitwear

industry. And now I work entirely in the handknitting

industry, as an indie designer but also as a knitting pattern

design teacher. So it's been a long journey.

Yeah! And you kept going basically from when you

were 13 and you made that amazing jumper?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I just

couldn't stop once I started. So I think was about 13 when I

knitted that jumper, and I remember even in my English

class, we had to do a sort of presentation about any topic of

our choice, and I decided I was going to do a presentation about

knitting to all of my class members. I'm not sure entirely

whether they enjoyed it or not, but yeah, I just loved knitting.

And I've knitted almost daily ever since.

Can you remember what your classmates thought of you?

Because I was always the only person knitting, for example,

during my doctorate, but by that point I was 25 and over so I was

kind of okay with it. But I don't know whether I would have

had the confidence at the age of 15, for example.

I think I was a bit of a strange kid

anyway. I didn't have a great time in school. I was bullied

quite badly. And so I think it got to the point where I was

just a bit like, "Meh". So I think there were some people who

were interested in it, and some people who just thought it was a

little bit lame, maybe, or a bit stupid. But I don't know... I

didn't get any more trouble than I normally would from it, to be

honest. And I think, as well, there were some people who I was

friends with who were very creative, and I think they quite

liked the idea that I made my own clothes, even if it was

maybe through a format... I think perhaps if I was like

really into sewing, maybe it would have been a bit cooler in

their eyes. I think just generally, the fact that I could

make my own clothes was considered quite interesting to

those people who were creative.

And I'm interested in the idea that the first thing

you made was an intarsia jumper, which is quite high-level!

Yeah! I quite like this for other

knitters as well. It depends on your personality type, but when

you're learning to knit it can be very tempting to just do a

very plain scarf, because it's just simple. You don't have to

deal with any shaping. But people often get bored because

they don't necessarily love how it looks. It's quite a long

project. I suppose a jumper is as well, but I really loved how

it looked. So that was kind of the motivation for me, that I

really wanted to wear it and therefore I was going to do

whatever it took to do the project, not necessarily

expertly! [Laughs] It was definitely a bit rough around

the edges, but I was so proud of it and I wore it a ton. I think

that can be a really lovely way to approach knitting, in a way,

choosing what you want to wear and then learning the skills

involved to do it.

Yeah, I think your motivation will be greater,

won't it?

Yeah, exactly.

I think a lot of people give up because they

start knitting a scarf, and actually a scarf is just too

big. I would struggle to knit a whole scarf because I'd lose my

mojo halfway through. It'd have to be a really interesting scarf

for me.

There's no differing instructions to

keep you going. It's all just "Do the same thing for a..."

Or a milestone, like a sleeve separation or

something.

Yeah, exactly. I kind of need those

milestones to keep me, you know, "Just one more row, just one

more row."

Yeah, and I think sometimes, I've certainly heard

about and I think this is true for me, that people at the

beginning, because they didn't quite know the scale of the

challenge they were taking on, just kind of thought, "Oh, yeah,

I'll do that" where they needed something without a pattern.

That's something I've heard about. Or knitted quite a

challenging pattern because they didn't quite realise how

challenging it was, and maybe now as a more experienced

knitter wouldn't dive in, in the same way, which in a way is a

shame!

Yeah, I completely agree. I think you're

totally right. Often as a beginner, you don't necessarily

realise quite how complex things can be. I was doing loads of

cables and fully charted lace stuff, just because I didn't

realise that it was considered complex. And as well, this was

you know, years before Ravelry, so I'd had nothing to compare it

to. I didn't know any knitters other than my Nana who was a

great knitter and she didn't ever discourage me from doing

things that were complex.

Yeah, she must have done a good job by saying,

"Yeah, go for it with your intarsia sweater!"

Yeah, it's so funny to think about

really, in hindsight. She never made me feel like it wasn't

doable. I just sat on the couch with her and knitted! [Laughs].

It was lovely. Yeah, very nice.

So that was a good choice to miss that hiking

holiday, as it turns out!

It totally was! I mean, even to

this day, I think I'd rather sit in a cosy pub and knit than go

on a hike. Is that bad?

No. It's fine. You found your zone. [Laughs] I

suppose I'm interested in why you knit now and how you feel it

benefits your mental well being.

Okay, so I think the primary reason why I

knit in general is I love clothes. I love having an idea

of what I want to wear and coming up with an outfit. And

then also, I'm very particular about what I like to wear, hence

why I like making my own clothes because you have so much more

control over the materials that you use, the colours, the shape,

all of that. And I think design obviously plays into that

because I do get so much control over it. But I get a lot of joy,

I suppose, from expressing myself through clothes. And even

looking back to when I was in my late teens, I remember that when

I finished school I moved on to college, and like I said, school

was not a great chapter for me. But moving on to college, I felt

like it was a fresh start, and I remember when I went there I

felt like I could dress however I wanted because I didn't feel

like I had to fit into this idea of what the people at school

thought about me. I could just be this new person. I could

dress the way I wanted. And even to this day, it feels good to

express myself through clothing. I definitely am a product

knitter as well as a process knitter. Even simply the process

of knitting is just so satisfying to me. I think I can

be a bit of an anxious person and worry about, like, "Am I

doing enough?", feeling like I've got this endless to do list

and feeling like I never quite feel finished or never feel like

I'm making progress. And with knitting, you can knit and you

can see your progress. You're spending time and you get

something out of it. Even with long projects, you still see

that you're making progress all the time, and for me that's just

a lovely feeling. It's reassuring, in a way.

So in a way, it isn't so much about the action. It's

about the feeling of, like, "This is a tangible, visible way

of seeing what I did today, or in the last half an hour."

Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I love

the process of knitting anyway. I really enjoy making things.

There's something lovely about having an idea, grabbing the

yarn, and then being able to knit it and create something

beautiful. I have always been into things that are kind of

repetitive, meditative. I don't mind, for example, folding

clothes, just having a pile of stuff and just sitting there and

folding it. I kind of like the rhythm of something repetitive

like that. And I think knitting plays into that. I really am

quite happy to do these repetitive tasks. I find it

quite calming. But no, I think for me the primary joy that I

get out of it, and the primary way that it helps, perhaps, with

my mental health, is just seeing this tangible example of what

I'm able to do.

So the sense of achievement of having made it

yourself, and also a demonstration of "This happened

today". And it sounds like the self-expression thing is also

important with the finished object, that it's wearable.

Yeah, that's exactly it. I've tried

knitting other things. I like making things maybe for the

home, or I've tried doing socks, and I like the practical side of

it, but I must admit I'm really drawn to sweaters and jumpers

because I feel like it's a greater canvas to fit my taste

and my personal style into.

Is that different to it being art, like a wearable

art? Is it more about you showing "This is who I am" or is

it both, maybe?

I think my pieces never feel like

wearable art to me, because I suppose I tend to err on the

side of practicality as well as something being beautiful. And

sometimes it doesn't feel practical to me if it's too

elaborate, or a lot of design details in there. It can be very

beautiful, but it doesn't feel like me because it doesn't feel

functional in my daily life. I'm trying to think of how I'd

describe it... I am very much into that kind of functional,

beautiful knit, and so I suppose it is more just who I am. It's

about who I am. And so it may even look quite mundane to

someone else, but for me it's something that I've put a lot of

intention into, and thought about how do I want it to look

on me, how do I want it to feel, how comfortable do I want it to

be. I'm not someone who enjoys wearing form-fitting stuff. I

don't like feeling restricted when I'm moving around. I like

kind of oversized billowy stuff. And so that's the kind of thing

that I would knit because it feels like me.

Yeah. So it is very much self-expression.

Yeah.

And you must get an even enhanced layer of that,

being a designer, and not just a knitter where you're looking at

other people's patterns and that's the pool you get to

choose from to knit.

Yeah, it's just wonderful because

you're thinking about every element of the design. And I

must admit, I do tend to design with myself in mind. There are

occasions where I'll design to a brief, like for a publication,

and I'll design something that I wouldn't necessarily wear but I

do like. A lot of the time I am thinking about what I want for

my own wardrobe. It's just lovely having control over all

of those different elements, your likes and dislikes, where

you want it to fit. Even selfishly, I'm thinking about my

wardrobe, you know. Yeah, it's so lovely to be able to

essentially dream up whatever I want/desire and be able to turn

it into a reality.

And how much of it is to do with things like the

materials or, for example, things like colour or texture?

Does that fit into that process?

Yes. So in terms of texture and colour,

yes, they totally play a part, but I tend to find that most of

the time my primary inspiration tends to come from silhouette,

the shape of the garment, but also design detail. So for

example, if you've ever bought something ready-to-wear, and you

see something that maybe not everyone would see when you're

wearing it, like a beautiful lining or a cuff or trim detail,

those are the things that really inspire me when I'm designing.

I'm just looking at my design board now and I can see I've got

very simple silhouettes for most of them, but every single one of

them have got maybe two to three smaller design details in there

that are very unexpected and just feel elegant and

intentional. Sometimes I think as a designer it can be very

tempting to maybe select an all-over stitch and then pop it

on a classic silhouette, and then maybe use a 2x2 rib trim,

because you want to use that particular stitch, maybe you

have a yarn in mind. For me, I like to approach it slightly

differently and think about every single little element. And

sometimes that means that I don't use a very busy stitch on

the garment, because I want to focus on other things. Or if I

were to use a busy stitch, then I would choose a more simple

option. But I do find that it is the shape of the garment and the

design details that really get me excited, and then the texture

and the colour tend to come in afterwards, and I think about

"Okay, what texture of yarn or colour of yarn can I use that

will bring out the beauty in these primary elements that I

want to emphasise?"

Okay, so the joy is in the details and the little

surprises, and that's the bit that makes your heart sing.

Yeah. Honestly, I could talk about it

for ages. I teach a pullover design course and I often talk

about this with my students. And I think it really plays back

into the work that I did as a swatch designer when I worked in

the commercial knitwear industry. We would be coming up

with new designs every day, and knitting up little prototypes of

them, and my boss would always talk about how... you know,

choose maybe two to three design elements and focus on those, on

making them really beautiful, rather than trying to chuck

everything at this one design. And I think the way that I've

always interpreted that is it might even be that you put a

functional element in your design, such as shaping, that

has to be there, and so you might as well make that

beautiful and turn it into a feature that you can then kind

of celebrate as opposed to hide away.

To me that sounds like that's harder to achieve as

a designer than, for example, putting a stitch pattern or a

colourwork motif all over something, and then using a more

standard design where the shaping... I guess you can use a

book that can tell you the maths. But turning the shaping

into a particular design feature probably is harder.

Yeah, it can be harder but it's very

satisfying at the end. And I tend to find, as well, that

people who've gone through the process of really thinking

through every single element of their design, rather than just

prioritising maybe the stitch or the pattern and then putting it

on almost like a template, there tends to be more satisfaction

with the design because they really have chosen everything

rather than going into automatic pilot and just choosing their

defaults.

That's amazing. In terms of you as a knitter, it

sounds like a lot of your design process is about the end product

rather than the process of knitting it. How about you as a

knitter? Are there particular things you gravitate towards? Do

you prefer the more rhythmical stitch patterns that are more

simple (if that's not a rude term to use)?

No, that is absolutely what I gravitate

towards. I love a beautiful-feeling yarn. I am

very tactile. I love working with patterns where I get to use

a lovely yarn. I'm not too worried about patterns and

variegated yarns, that kind of thing. It's not necessarily my

vibe. But a really beautiful texture yarn or something in a

really special colour, I'm totally drawn to that. And then

in terms of the actual stitch patterns, I'm much more of a

knit-purl kind of texture person. I do enjoy knitting

cables but it's not my favourite. I really am very

basic. I can do colourwork, I can do cables, but I've realised

that what I enjoy knitting the most, what I find most relaxing,

and in the end what I find more wearable at the end, is the

simple stuff.

Yeah. That's good that they all match together

though. It'd be tricky if you were someone who wanted to spend

time knitting colourwork, but actually it wasn't what you

wanted to wear.

Yeah, that's so true.

And I think the main thing is that we all figure out

what we need, isn't it? I was writing something about how do

you make knitting more therapeutic for you, and I think

that's the ideal thing, isn't it? That you find that those

rhythmical stitch patterns of knits and purls, that's what

floats your boat and you do that. And maybe I need some

colourwork to engage my brain to stop it freelancing and thinking

about other things. But it's perfect that knitting can give

both of us those things, even though they're different.

Yeah, that's absolutely the beauty of

knitting is there are so many routes you can take it, so many

options. You can go super, super complex and really just

intricate stuff that is, to be honest, very fun to knit

actually, if you're in the right mood. And for some people that

is their thing. They love doing that. Or you can spend still get

hours of enjoyment from knitting a stockinette sweater. It can

still be equally as enjoyable and therapeutic.

Yeah, and I think a lot of people I've talked to and

certainly something I found for myself is I need a number of

projects on the go. I do need a complicated one, I think, for my

brain, and also actually because I think if I knit something very

easy, I can knit too quickly and get pain, like RSI. I think I

need something that slows me down so that I can engage my

brain in it but not hurt my shoulder. basically. But I also

need (like for yesterday supervising two children

homeschooling!) a plain sock on the go, so that I can see I may

not have had access to my laptop or ticked anything off my to do

list, but I did knit an inch of a sock. A mitten, actually, it

was.

Exactly. I think that's so true. I never

used to be someone who had multiple projects on the go. I

think possibly budget reasons as well, like I'd buy a yarn, I

would knit the project intended for that yarn, and then once I'd

finished that project, I'd buy a new yarn, new project. Now, as

an adult, I have a bit more expendable income and I'm able

to have maybe two/three projects on the go. I do find though

that, interestingly, I tend to favour one project, and the

other two tend to be at the bottom of the pile and I really

almost have to force myself to work on them. So I wonder if I'm

possibly a monogamous knitter that is attempting to branch out

into having multiple projects on the go. But yeah, I do like that

single-tasking thing because, again, perhaps it's the sign of

progress for me. Sometimes I feel like when I'm working on so

many things at once, I don't get as much done on a single

project. I have to wait longer for the final result.

It dilutes it, doesn't it, I suppose.

Yeah, exactly. So I wonder if that's

maybe why, actually, thinking about it.

Are there times your work forces you into polygamy

with a knitting project?

Yeah. [Laughs] Totally. Yeah, I'll

have multiple things on the go, and then normally I'll have

maybe a personal project as well, and then now with Nico I

tend to have a little something on the go for him as well. I

think I do find it more relaxing, actually, to just have

a single thing. I think I'm like that in daily life. I like just

doing one single thing. I'm not a big fan of multi-tasking. I

feel a bit overwhelmed by it. And there is a bit of that that

can creep in if I have too many things in my knitting basket. I

do like having a bit more focus.

Do you think you've learnt more about what you need

as a knitter over time, and how you work best?

Yeah, I definitely do. Probably in the

last five years, I would say, I've really started being very,

very... what's the word... I think through my... I'd be more

impulsive in the past about what I was going to knit. So I'd be

more impulsive with yarn purchasing, but also with

projects that I was casting on. I'd always find a project that I

liked and a yarn that I liked and cast on, which sounds

fantastic, right? But my experience is that sometimes

with the end project, I feel disappointed because it's maybe

not something that I'm going to regularly use. I'm not going to

wear it as much. And I've realised that for myself, I need

to consider all of that. And so it's really only in the last

five years that I've kind of discovered that about myself,

and I find that these days I have much less situations where

I knitted something and I realised, "Oh, this isn't quite

what I wanted it to be." In the past, there'd be a few more

where I'd knit a sweater and I'm like, "Oh, I like it, but it's

not..." I don't use it very often.

So it's more intentional now.

Yeah, it's more intentional now for

sure.

I was just going to ask about colour - about whether

colour makes a difference in terms of... it sounds like

you're very much a tactile, texture person in terms of the

knitting feeling. I don't know if that's a comfort thing?

That's probably my word, not yours.

I think it could be a comfort thing,

yeah. When I'm saying it has to feel great, I don't necessarily

mean that it has to be soft as well. I really love a woolly one

as well.

But it's a texture experience for you?

A texture experience, yeah.

And how about the colour? Does it matter what

colour you're knitting with?

Yes. I have... I call it my internal

colour palette, because I find that I'm drawn to the same

colours all the time. I went through a stage... So the time I

was talking about when I was in college, and I was exploring

what I wanted to wear, was very colourful and I really enjoyed

playing with colour. And then when I went to fashion school, I

actually found that I pushed that down because I wanted to be

cool [laughs] and I wanted to wear black like all the other

fashion students. And I think I didn't allow myself to have fun

with colour in the way that I should have at the time. And so

it took a little bit of undoing after fashion school, and

leaving the commercial knitwear industry, because again you do

feel maybe that peer pressure to look a certain way or wear what

is considered fashionable. Now, I've tapped into what colours I

really enjoy wearing. I'm just drawn to them. I can literally

just like picture them in front of me, the colours I'm drawn to.

And I suppose I don't tend to veer away from them too much,

because there are times when I've done that: I like a colour,

but then I find that I don't tend to wear it. So I think

colour for me is something I love playing with. I love

exploring it in the home. I love exploring it in art, things like

that. When it comes to my knitwear, whether I'm designing

or whether I'm knitting for myself, it's a bit more boxed in

just because I suppose I'm thinking about that

functionality myself. And also, when you're designing, colour is

a little bit limited by photography as well. You can't

go too dark, because it could be hard to photograph the details

and things like that, so it can be a bit more limited. But no,

certainly with knitwear, I get excited by it but it's within

limits, to a certain extent. It's within these boundaries of

my mind where I'm like, "Okay, this has got to be functional

too. How's it going to fit a certain wardrobe?"

And how would you describe your kind of comfort

palette, your internal palette?

It is neutrals with pops of more

earthy pinks and clays and turquoise and olives, that kind

of things. I've got plenty of navy and camel and grey,

charcoal, cream, that kind of thing, in my wardrobe. But in

terms of pops of colour, they tend to be more accents, and it

will be blush pinks, clays, turquoises, olives, that kind of

thing. It feels feminine but quite natural.

And it sounds like it feels like it's not a fashion

school hangover. It's you.

No. It feels very true to myself. And

what's really interesting is now, Nico is nonverbal at the

moment, and I must admit I find myself buying him clothes in my

internal colour palette because it's just what I'm drawn to. But

it's hilarious because often we'll go out and people will

say, "Oh, you're matching today!" I really have such a

formed colour palette.

I wondered whether you're knitting for Nico,

actually thinking, "Oh, I'm going to knit in a bright yellow

because it's not for me and it's different and it's fun." But it

sounds like he's been assimilated into your palette

currently.

I know, he has. It's quite bad. [Laughs]

I do have certain colours though that I knit for him that I love,

that don't look good on me. I'm very, very pale. Mustard yellow

is not the best colour on me. It can make me look a bit sallow.

But I really love mustard yellow and he looks amazing in it, so I

do knit things or buy him things in mustard yellow because he

just looks great in it. But I put him in loads of pinks and

people are just like, "Oh, it's a girl!" But I'm a strong

believer that colour is colour, and anyone can wear colour. And

yeah, he does tend to wear my internal colour palette.

I'd love for you to tell me about a significant

knitting project, Clare, if you've got one in mind.

A significant knitting project...

I suppose it would be a design project that I did knit, and I

believe it was my first published project. And it was on

was one of the early issues. And I remember the magazine coming

out and I thought, "Oh, I'd like to design something in this

style." It felt quite connected to my own personal style. I

designed in The Fibre Co's Road to China Light. It's actually a

yarn that I picked up just a sample of, to knit my sister

something, not that long beforehand at a little Christmas

market. And I thought it was a beautiful yarn. And when I came

up with this design idea (it's a drop shoulder sweater) it had

this kind of gridded lace pattern that went up the side

panels of the sweater and then kind of draped over the

shoulder. I just wanted something really light but cosy

to knit it in, that would have good drape, because it had a bit

of positive ease in there, and I'd had a feeling that this Road

to China Light would be beautiful for it. And yeah, I

was just shocked, to be honest, that they would even include me

in the magazine as a new designer, but also the fact that

it was eventually on the cover, which just blew my mind. And I

can remember calling my sister saying, "You won't believe

this!" You know, I never would have imagined it because I still

felt very new in the handknitting industry. Yes, I've

got this experience working in the commercial industry, but

no-one knew me. I'm still not a fully-fledged established

designer in the way that a lot of designers are. But to me that

just felt like a huge milestone, and it made me think, "Maybe I

can do this. Maybe I can design things that people will want to

knit."

Did that change things for you, that kind of

belief? Or did being on the cover open doors?

I think I started taking myself more

seriously. I think I gave myself a bit more trust that I was

capable. In terms of whether other people maybe took me more

seriously, a little bit of that maybe as well. I did get

published again by other people, and maybe they saw that as a bit

of proof that I could do it. But I think the biggest thing that

changed really, from having knitted that... and it was a

lovely knitting experience, and I went on to work for the Fibre

Co as well. So in a way, even just yarn choice was so

significant. They were a lovely company. I no longer work for

them, but they were a lovely company to work for and a really

important part of who I am now, as a person working in the

knitting industry. It just felt significant on a lot of

different levels. I still have that sample under my bed. It's

one of those kind of sweaters that I'll often pull out if I go

to a knitting festival or something, because I have a

happy feeling related to it.

So it sounds like that design was really important

for you in terms of your mindset as well.

Yeah, 100%. It created self-belief,

really. In the beginning, I was very much figuring out things as

I went along and feeling an amateur, in a way. Even though

it's funny because obviously I had a lot of training. I'm

trained as a knitwear designer, I've done pattern cutting, I can

work with machine-knitting, handknitting. I have this

history of skills that I've learnt over the years, not to

mention the hand-knitting that I'd done for years and years

beforehand. But I still went into it very much feeling unsure

of myself and my capabilities. And I think for me, being able

to go through that process... and it really was so different

to anything I'd done before, because I'd only ever

self-published previous to that, and I wasn't working to

deadlines in the same way. I wasn't working within someone

else's process. I had my own ways of doing things that I had

to adapt. But having come out of it, I realised that I was more

than capable of doing it, and it gave me that self belief to

continue.

And now you have your own design school where you're

teaching other people to design?

Yeah, I do. So I have a school called

Sweater Design School. In the past, it's opened up once a

year; now I'm doing it twice a year, now that Nico is in

part-time childcare, so I have a bit more bandwidth to offer to

it. I teach beginner designers how to design their first

pullover. And I suppose for me, it echoes back to that

experience with that pullover that I designed for Laine. It

was that thing of learning that I'm capable, and that confidence

that comes from having done it and gone through the process.

What I find with my students is that that first jumper that they

design, there's so much umming and ahhing, feeling uncertain.

It's a very complex process, especially when you're grading

into multiple sizes. There can be a lot of anxiety around

whether you're going to be able to achieve it. But once they

come through the end, and they get to the end of the process

and they've got that final pattern designed, there's so

much confidence that comes from it. And then they go on to do

another one and another one, and it just builds confidence more

and more as they go through it. So I absolutely love doing that

with them.

So it sounds like you get a lot of joy from taking

other people through that process, that you remember was

pivotal for you.

Yeah. It's so exciting because I'm

there with them from the very beginning. So we are coming up

with mood boards, then turning them into sketches, and then

swatches, and grading it out in a spreadsheet, so you really do

see every part of the process and you can see your students

transform this early idea into a fully fledged garment that they

publish, and then other people knit it! It's such a rewarding

experience, not only for the student, but also for me to

observe it. I feel so delighted for them, because I know how

proud they must feel.

Yeah. I don't think you mentioned the name of your

pullover.

Oh! The name of my pullover is the Hay

sweater.

Hay sweater. Oh yeah, I do remember seeing it on the

front cover, because I think that was around the time we met

each other.

Yes, I think it probably was.

But I'll obviously put a link to it in the show

notes. I always end by asking:

what's the greatest gift that

notes. I always end by asking:

knitting has given you for the rest of your life?

Oh my goodness. I would say the

greatest gift that it has given me is that feeling of being able

to turn my ideas into reality. That is the most wonderful

thing. I love being able to dream something up and then

execute on it. And it's this tangible thing.

So there's a certain magic in that process from idea

to a creation.

Magical. Yeah.

That's amazing! That's a really interesting and

different answer than I've heard before. Thank you so much for

joining me on the podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure to

hear about all your ideas. And I think you're the first designer

actually, so it's really interesting to hear your

designer perspective.

Wonderful!

If people want to find out more about you and your

sweater school, how would they do that?

So all they need to do is head to

www.sistermountain.com and there you'll find my blog. I update it

regularly with tips on knitting pattern design and resources.

And also there is a section all about Sweater Design School. So

if you are interested in hearing more about it when it opens up

again, which should be sort of late August time, then you can

sign up to be notified in that area.

Super. Clare, thank you so much.

That was wonderful! Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to the Why I Knit

podcast. If you'd like to find out more about therapeutic

knitting, you can follow me on Instagram @knittingistherapeutic

or at my website www.therapeuticknitting.org. If

you're enjoying the podcast, I would really appreciate it if

you could leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. This

will help grow the podcast and let more people know about the

therapeutic benefits of knitting. And don't forget to