theraineysisters knitting and so much more

I am sure that most of you are familiar with Rosemary Hill, aka Romi Hill. 

She is the talented designer of beautiful lace, such as the Ice Queen Cowl, Brandywine Shawl, Maia Shawlette, and many other incredible designs.  She is well known for her stunning shawl pins and knitting-inspired jewelry.   She is the author of Elements of Style (fabulous knitted jewelry).  Her designs and  jewelry have been featured in Vogue Knitting, Interweave Knits and more.

Romi is also my friend.  I met her through blogging and then in person at Yarnover.  She is a sweet, lovely, generous person; talented beyond description and truly creative and original.

Romi lives in the breathtaking wine country of California with a husband and two growing boys.  Both Romi and her husband work from home and also home school their kids, so “close knit” really applies to their household.  Romi agreed to be subjected to an informal phone interview with me as I attempted to find out what makes her tick as a designer.

S: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for our blog!  Sally and I both admire your work tremendously.

R: My pleasure!

S: When did you really start to feel like your design career was taking off?  Was there a moment when you thought, “I have arrived?”

R: Have I arrived?  I live in my myopic little world and am unaware of what’s going on out there [in the knitting world].  There are a lot of people who don’t know who I am, but then someone will come up to me and recognize me!  I think things started to take off at the end of 2009.   I was asked to design for a few magazines and then Brandywine came out.  I don’t know if it was the combination of it being a quick, one-skein shawl and the charitable aspect of it [Help for Haiti], but things seemed to take off then.

S: I always thought of Ice Queen as a turning point [Ice Queen appeared in Knitty in Winter 2007 and there are over 1400 projects in Ravelry]. 

S: And seeing  your shawl pins discussed in Vogue!  How much time do you spend a day on your jewelry and designing?

R: I spend probably more time per day than people with regular jobs — at least 8-10 hours a day, and also one or both weekend days.  I kind of pick away at it all the time.

S: I associate your work with lace.  Is that your focal area?

R: I love lace, I really do.  I love the negative space.  Before I started designing shawls I did a lot of texture and sweaters.  I would love to combine cables and lace into something.

S: Sally and I are both making Leyfi (pronounced Lie-Fee, shown above).  What inspired that particular design?

R: It started when I saw a lace cowl and thought, “That type of thing would look great as the neck of a sweater.”  Then the concept of a doily and a round yoke took shape.  I wanted to make an Icelandic-type sweater with lace.  Eunny [Yang, Interweave Knits editor] thought something softer would be better and suggested Tinka [Merino Roving by Tahki] mixed with cobweb weight cashmere and silk [Superior by Filatura Di Crosa] would be softer next to the skin.

S: Ya think?  It is very pricey yarn!

R: True!  But I needed something chunky to achieve the look I wanted. 

S: How do you come up with appropriate sizes?

R: I use standard guidelines and reference books.  Plus, I check the fit along the way.

S: My Leyfi appears to be fitting perfectly, so something is working! 

S: Sally and I are also making your Maia Shawlette (above).  It, too, is an extremely clever design!  We love the variation you came up with on the garter tab cast on [incorporating a large leaf].  I also love the fact that the border works with any number of repeats.

R: I have started doing that with all my shawls.  People have different amounts of yardage and want different sized shawls.  This way they can make it the size they want.

S: I love your shawlettes: they make use of one skein of sock yarn.

R: I like that, too.  I love sock yarn but do not like to knit socks.  This way I can use the sock yarn I have accumulated!

S: I’m with you there!  I love sock yarn and don’t like knitting socks either!  What inspires you?

R: Taking walks [in the wine country] inspires me.  It is beautiful!

S: What’s next for you?

R: I have three secret projects going, the 2011 Pins & Lace Club is coming up, and I am continuing to work on my Seven Shawls to Knit E-Book.

S: I’m going to have to knit faster to keep up!

R: I’ll try to design faster to give you something to knit!

I want to thank Romi for taking the time to talk to me today.  My next Romi project will be the stunningly beautiful Fiori di Sole:

Stop, Romi!  I’m way behind already!

Thank you for all of your sympathetic comments!  You would think I would be knitting up a storm, but every night I am so tired, I flop on the couch!  I am hoping that today I’ll be a bit perkier. 

The dinner went extremely well.  We had a very casual menu so it wasn’t a lot of work.  I need to do this more often as my house is STILL clean!  I don’t hate my house when it’s clean!  I wish a neighbor would stop by so I could invite them in instead of standing guard at the door hoping they can’t see past me! 😉

There are many reasons not to like housework — too numerous to list.  But I think I have come up with a new one.  Last evening as I was emptying the dishwasher, I put a coffee cup in the left side of the cupboard, which pushed another cup out of the right side of the cupboard: a very heavy, white porcelain mug.  It hit the counter and broke, and then proceeded to the floor.  A large chunk of it hit me above my heel, right at the location of the Achilles Tendon.  It bled like crazy and hurt like hell.  The gash is the shape of an inverted “V” with each leg ~1 inch long.   I could see white behind the flap of skin and presumed that the shard was still embedded in my ankle.  No.  It was my tendon (when I heard that I about passed out!!).  They stitched me up, but I am in pain and limping. 

We have put off our little cookout until tomorrow.  And no, Jena (youngest daughter), I did not do this to ruin your life.  Though, as we all know, everything I do is done in order to ruin her life! 😉

PS: I love Sivani’s idea of convalescence yarn!!

What more could a knitter want than another Swallowtail Shawl??  I loved my first (in Malabrigo Sock, color Solis) so much I decided to make one more.  I got the yarn last year as  a result of the 2009 Sock Summit.  People could vote on different hand-dyed sock yarns from a variety of sources.  I fell for Georgia Peach (at least, I think that was the name!) by Three Irish Girls.  I liked it so much that I ordered a skein.  It took months.  So long, in fact, that I totally forgot about it.  It was like a little surprise package when it arrived!!

I couldn’t think of a good project for it until the last couple of weeks when I needed a second Swallowtail as a shop sample.  The colourway isn’t typical for me, but it is in my “warm, summer palette.” 

I used US 6 needles as called for.  With my first, I used a US 4 and added 5 repeats of the Budding Lace Chart.  They ended up the identical size.  The peach one is looser — and not quite as nice, in my HO. 

As luck would have it, Sharon from the Three Irish Girls will be here next weekend at Darn.Knit {Anyway} in Stillwater.  I didn’t realize until today that Sharon was conducting a workshop.  I teach that day myself so I wouldn’t be able to attend, but I may stop by to see if there is any yarn to buy look at.

Twinsetjan commented on my last post:

“Yay for knitting warriors!!  Twinsetellen got me into the next level of knitting while I was stationed in Iraq.  She sent me a sock pattern, yarn and dpns and told me to just figure it out.  (Up till then I’d been a very basic knitter!)  Knitting in an up-armored HMWVV is one of my favorite memories.”

I love reading Ellen and Jan’s blog because we share so much in common (and they happen to be very interesting people): two knitting sisters, one in Minnesota, one in or near our nation’s capitol.  I really like their blog format of writing a letter to the other in way of an update.

Ellen was certainly instrumental in advancing Jan’s knitting to the next level!!  Surly did (and still does)  the same for me.  Years ago, she got kind of pushy and told me I HAD to branch out beyond knitting in one color.  She dragged me downtown to Ram Wools yarn shop (yes, it used to be located in Minneapolis, right downtown in kind of the warehouse district).  My daughter was 3 at the time, so I figured if I made something for her, it would be easier.  This pattern is an Annabel Fox design from an old Rowan pattern book (Rowan Children #1), and is called the Bill and Ben Cardigan.

That same day I bought some sale yarn in apricot and after completing the above, I tackled another intarsia design from the same book and designer, called Magic Dragon:

The rest is history…once I started using more than one color, I never looked back!  I guess I have to thank Sally for pushing me beyond my perceived limits and expanding my knitting world.

I certainly enjoyed myself at Eat-O-Rama -er- Knit-O-Rama!  What a great day — kudos to the fabulous planning committee. 

Let me get the important part out of the way first: the food.  The event was held at The Northland Inn in Brooklyn Park.  I live in Brooklyn Park and have attended many events there. 

Our Room

Outside our room was the snack kiosk.  In the morning, it was stocked with a continental breakfast: pastries, juice, coffee, hard boiled eggs, bagels, fruit, yogurt, etc.  Wonderful.   For lunch, we had the pleasure of sampling their famous buffet: salads, hot entrees, made-to-order grill (I had walleye!), specialty desserts…yum!  After that, we returned to our meeting room and discovered that the breakfast kiosk had been replaced with afternoon snacks: cheese & crackers, bars & cookies, pretzels, gummy bears, malted milk balls, and assorted sodas.  Okay.  I was in heaven!!  Clearly, I could live there and be happy for life!

The Program
A few months ago, an article appeared in the StarTribune about an American soldier in Iraq who was himself a knitter and taught his fellow soldiers how to knit.  Many of us implored the Guild to arrange for him to speak to our group.  Staff Sargent John Sorich IV was the keynote presenter at Knit-O-Rama.

Staff Sargent John Sorich IV

It was more than amazing.  John started out by describing the role his platoon (? right word ?) played in Iraq building bridges for use by both the military and the civilian population.   He talked about the unbearable heat, the emotional toll, and the sense of accomplishment.  After that, he talked about knitting — he learned here in the States and brought his yarn and needles with him.  Despite a bit of ribbing (pun intended!) from his peers, he eventually convinced a few of his buddies to give it a try to help stave off the boredom of their non-working hours.  Several of them really enjoyed it.  He had pictures and video of their knitting group and brought FOs to share.

The curved item in the upper right of the last picture is the ammo magazine cover he knitted from parachute cord, using pencils for knitting needles to get gauge!  You’ll note that all of his FOs are knit in “army green” using vintage patterns from a WWII knitting book.  I believe he said the color is Cascade 220 # 9547.   He said his current project is his first sweater, in (you guessed it) #9547 using one of the vintage sweater patterns!!

John was a great speaker, humble and very interesting.  It was wonderful hearing his story and we were all very grateful that he shared it with us.

Next was the Ugliest Knitting contest — very few entries!!  I think most of us rip out or discard our failures (or gift them….!!), so not many people had anything to show.

Rox Richardson and I were next up for Stump Ask the Expert.  

Susan and Rox

Rox is well known on Ravelry for answering technical knitting questions.  She writes for the Ravelry Newsletter and has a group devoted to her called Rox Rocks with over 550 members.  We answered questions from the audience for about an hour.  Last on the agenda was yours truly, discussing how to enter items in the Minnesota State Fair.

All in all, I think everyone enjoyed the day as much as I did.  I sure hope the Guild offers more of these events in the future.