Knit the Sky: Interview with Lea Redmond
Lea Redmond will be here at the shop tonight for her book signing and workshop!
If you can't make it, but are still very much intrigued by her book Knit the Sky, we invite you to learn more about Lea and her process right here on the blog. Lea Redmond is always looking for the poem hiding inside things: a salt shaker, a clothes tag, a hand gesture, a cloud. She is infinitely intrigued by the way experiences can slip from the ordinary to the extraordinary, and she endeavors to make things that hold this possibility. Lea designed the popular "sky scarf" pattern in 2008. Her book, Knit The Sky, will be published by Storey Publishing this August. Lea is also the founder and lead designer for Leafcutter Designs, a creative studio best known for its World's Smallest Post Service's teeny tiny letters and the keepsake journal series that began with "Letters To My Future Self." Lea's grandmother taught her to knit when she was seven years old.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Lea earlier this month about her new book.
ImagiKnit: What was your inspiration for Knit The Sky?
Lea: I'm always looking for ways to infuse everyday life with meaning and creativity. I've been a knitter for a long time, so that was a natural medium for me to explore with. Years ago, when I first learned to spin yarn on a wheel, I remember gazing up at the clouds thinking about how wonderful it would be if I could just pull them down like roving and spin them up! Only a decade later did I realize that I could do the next best thing: knit the weather with sky colored yarns, slowly making a scarf over the course of an entire year.
ImagiKnit: How would you summarize the purpose of the book?
Lea: This is an idea book. It's full of wild, weird, and wonderful projects that connect knitters to the people, places, and activities they love. The main offering of the book is a new way of thinking about knitting--and even craft generally. I hope to open a window for people, so that others can enjoy the whimsical, experiential, adventure-filled processes of knitting that I've come to cherish in my own life. And while it's certainly a knitting book, one of the most exciting aspects of it is that it's also truly a book about creativity more generally. Frankly, someone could read this book and design dinner parties instead of scarves!
ImagiKnit: How do you see knitters using the ideas in the book in their knitting lives?
Lea: First, knitters can make any of the 30 or so projects in the book. And there is lots of room for them to tweak the projects to be more personal and perfect for them. But larger than that, I see knitters getting excited about the bigger picture of knitting conceptually, and taking that big idea and running with it in their own unique ways. There's even a small section near the end that guides readers through a creative process that generates their own radically personal knitting projects. And I can't wait to see what people dream up and make!
We hope you can make it to our book signing and workshop tonight! Click here for more information.