I can’t think of a more exciting series to be writing - highlighting women-identified and femme* makers who are defining success for themselves and running creative, independent businesses. Today, I want to share a bit about my background working in predominantly male fields, how this has shaped my story-telling, and why I believe representation matters.

Nathan Bryant, the knitter and designer behind LoopnThreads, creates minimal, modern designs with an emphasis on quality. A stunning photographer, Nathan employs his skills both behind and in front of the camera to create beautiful imagery that captures the essence of his design aesthetic. A member of the Our Maker Life crew, Nathan keeps busy with a full time day job, photography, OML planning, and designing.

As small business owners, knitwear designers wear many hats. Usually, this means modeling their own designs or finding a friend or relative willing to model for them, and organizing their own photoshoots. This is very limiting and not representative of makers of different sizes, proportions, skin colors or ages. It can be difficult to visualize if a pattern is going to work. That's why we held photoshoots for two of our desginers and plan to take this further and put together a larger scale shoot, with samples from lots of designers being photographed over multiple days with multiple models.

Hannah Fettig is a household name amongst knitters. A trailblazing career designer, Hannah has achieved sustainable success in knitwear design. Supporting her family with her work, she's an absolute inspiration to designers and makers alike. We are incredibly grateful to Hannah for opening her home to us, and sharing intimately with us.

The past six months have been a huge period of change for me. I graduated university, left my retail job of over two years and started working full time in a role I could have never imagined. I feel as if I have entered into an entirely new era, and I have been overcome with the desire to make my physical surroundings reflect that. I wanted a stash that reflects the person I am now.

Ever thought of learning to crochet over Skype? Ani just tried it, with the help and friendly guidance of designer Ivonne of Montaño: Hand-Crafted Crochet. Throughout the lesson, Ivonne shared some of her remarkable story

Grading can be a daunting task, but breaking down the process into these steps will help you on your way to mastering this ever important aspect of design. Offering a full range of sizes for your patterns will open your brand up to a wider audience and help people of all shapes and sizes find the perfect knitting and crochet patterns!

As makers, designers, and creative souls, we know the power of inspiration and experiencing that powerful motivation to simply make. But what happens when the inspiration runs dry? If you feel drained of creative energy or void of inspiration, a moment of recharge and revival can be as close as outside of your front door.

In the midst of the holiday season, Ani caught up with Hanne-Mette, a designer and prolific knitter. Hanne-Mette shares her approach to knitting, influenced by her chronic fatigue, and how she has developed a mindfulness practice through knitting. She shares with us some of her personal history and her specific approach to gift knitting - both for her family and friends, and charity organizations in Norway.

With Christmas, comes a very special season for makers. The gift of giving nourishes the soul, especially when you’ve thought carefully about the people you’re giving presents to. It’s all in the way their face glows as they tear away the wrapping paper and see what lies beneath. And this feeling only magnifies when you’ve made the gift yourself. It took time, and a skill set unique to you! …well this is what I imagine it would feel like, as I’ve never actually knitted anyone anything for Christmas before. I am a very new knitter, I’ve been knitting for approximately 6 weeks, yet even I couldn’t avoid the allure of making someone I love a gift for Christmas.

Here we are, in the 3rd week of December, and like always, I’ve put off any holiday planning (because I dislike traditional shopping? Because I’m grumpy about consumer culture? Because I’m just a procrastinator? Probably some combination of all of the above). Regardless, here I am - a knitter, who likes to make things for other people, in the middle of the holiday season, with no gifts on-the-go for *cough* anyone.

With all the different ways to make, most people will also have a preference for how they access their patterns. There are so many options out there from physical books and magazines, pattern folders in yarn stores and baskets of vintage patterns sold second hand, digital patterns found on blogs or purchased online. Now there is another option, and I’m pretty excited.

As a new designer, sizing my patterns was intimidating. No one was there to teach me how to interpret the Craft Yarn Council standard sizing! I wasn’t sure how to approach a tech editor or grader---I wasn’t even familiar with grading itself! The process of sizing knitting patterns can all seem overwhelming at first, but there are a few things you can do to prep yourself to get your brand on track to being completely size inclusive.

My name’s Meg. I’m an image taker, movie maker, and devoted explorer of human character. I started working with Making Things a few months ago to document maker processes, worlds and ideas. As someone whose only knitting experience was a rainy weekend at my grandma’s house as a restless eight year old, I was shocked to find myself completely captivated by the people and lines of thought I encountered. I needed to know more. I wanted to understand!

Essay 2: We Knit to Care for: Our Dearest. A series of short essays on care-taking through making. This essay explores love language and time investments

Essay 1 - We Knit to Care for: Ourselves. A series of short essays on care-taking through making. This essay explores self care and mental health

Size inclusion is one of the most important issue facing the knitwear design community today. This craft is for ALL people of ALL sizes.

In the excitement of launching, we’ve been blown away by how curious you all are about who we are and what we’re doing! So, let’s dig in. I’ll answer as many questions as I can here, and if there’s anything you’re still wondering about, ask away! We are a community-first company built on feedback from you 😀