Behind the designs
Hello friends! I‘m so excited to launch Yarn Posse Designs, the next phase in my incredible knitting journey. This journey started when I was 7 years old, up at my aunt and uncle’s vacation place in Vermont. My aunt taught me and my cousin Andrew how to knit. There is a scarf made of crappy acrylic yarn in every 1970’s colors somewhere in the world that is full of holes and crazy stitches that (surprise) looks like it was made by a 7-year-old. I did some of it, Andrew did some of it, my aunt did some of it and my mom too. I will have to try and find this creation and post a pic.
40 years later - I took a knitting lesson in a yarn shop in Portland, Oregon. I have a super stressful, intense day job in financial services, and the stress was starting to take a real toll on me mentally and emotionally. Someone suggested I try knitting to relieve stress, so off I went to the LYS. At the time I had no idea what an LYS even was! I loaded up on a pair of size 8 bamboo straight needles and a couple of skeins of sport weight yarn (editorial comment - I have since learned that a size 8 needle is way too big for a sport weight yarn...unless you are trying to make a fishing net...just sayin‘...). I sat at the table with the shop lady and she showed me how to cast on. Somewhere in my brain, my seven-year-old self recognized the hand motions of how to do the long tail cast on and the humble but mighty garter stitch. Being me, I was dissatisfied with the yarn I bought so off I went to another LYS to buy some ridiculously expensive purple bulky cashmere yarn. I started my obligatory scarf (garter stitch of course). I put it down, got distracted and didn‘t pick it up again for another year and a half.
18 months later - my uncle passed away so I pulled out the scarf to finish as a Christmas gift for my aunt - the very same aunt who valiantly tried to teach me to knit when I was 7. I finished the scarf a week before Christmas and decided to knit one for my mom too. By the end of that second scarf, I was hooked. Knitted during a very intense week of pre-Christmas business travel, I knit it on planes, in Ubers and hotel rooms. And sure enough, knitting that scarf DID RELIEVE MY STRESS. It was like a revelation. I haven‘t put the needles down since.
Even though I work in finance I‘ve always had a creative bent that needs to find a way out. When I was in high school I really wanted to be a fashion designer - but beyond designing my junior and senior prom dresses and a costume for my high school‘s debut of The Wiz (I did the Cowardly Lion, for the record), it didn‘t really go anywhere. So I guess it should be no surprise that, as my knitting skills improved, so did my desire to do my own thing design-wise. Throw in a global pandemic that kept us all in our houses for over a year and...here we are. I was determined to come out of this pandemic with something constructive to show for it - and so Yarn Posse Designs was born. The name is a shout-out to my fabulous group of knitting friends in Oregon who went with me every step of my journey. Kirsten, Amy, Cindy and Trish, Yarn Posse Designs would not have been even the merest twinkle in my eye without your love, support, friendship and honest feedback. Thank you!