designer interview: lee meredith of leethal knits!
Hello out there! I have a special treat for you today: an interview with Lee Meredith, the very talented lady behind leethal knits, and creator of the patterns for Infinite Twist's June kits Krewe and Blur. Make sure to head over to leethal knits to see all her designs - you will be blown away!
Current physical location: My ridiculously cluttered studio/office inside a small, bright blue house in Southeast Portland, Oregon.
This morning, my breakfast was: Honey greek yogurt with cereal and a little granola, plus 3 tiny freshly picked strawberries from my yard!
Which of your recent LP finds are you excited about, and/or best recent vintage score? I'm most excited about recently buying The Mountain Goats' Tallahassee and The Sunset Tree records after seeing them live, because John Darnielle signed them! I've been a big fan for like 13 years now, so those are cool to have signed. Vintage scores - I'm excited to have recently gotten Nina Simone's 'Nuff Said!, which was mostly recorded live in 1968 and includes "Ain't Got No, I Got Life", a favorite.
Last time I interviewed you, I asked about your current work, and you mentioned about a 2-color shawl with slip-stitch patterns (I'm assuming this is Lerro?). What inspired you to start working with stitch patterns in this way? Yup, that's Lerro. I used the same kind of technique combo - slipped stitches + twisted stitches - in Krewe, though it has a totally different look because of the dropped stitches. I love that you can get really complex colorwork designs by combining the twisted stitches, which are basically mini-cables and are very easy to do, with the slipped stitches, so there's no stranding (only use 1 color at a time). I'm not really into stranded colorwork - I love how it looks but am super slow at doing it (I probably just need more practice!) - so I love experimenting with other ways to play with colors that don't require stranding.
Any other upcoming work you'd like to share? I'm currently working on this year's Adventure Knit-a-long, which I'm very excited about! It will be really different from last year's, but still choose-your-own-adventure inspired, with a bit more of a story this year. I won't give anything away, but the pre-order release will happen soon (around July 1st) so more will be revealed then! Also, I began designing my first ever sweater earlier this year, so once I'm done with the Adventure Knitting collection, that will be next up, for hopefully an early fall release. It's a weird, asymmetrical design for any weight yarn, custom fit (but loosely fitted) to any body; a bit ambitious for my first garment design, but I think it's awesome!