Over the next few weeks, I will be featuring designers and yarn makers I'd like you to meet. This week's newsletter highlights knitwear designer, Jill Wolcott.
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A little about Jill Wolcott
Jill is a fashion designer who designs handknits. For most of the year, you can find her teaching technical design and portfolio classes at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco. For more information about Jill, visit her website, jillwolcottknits.com or find her on Ravelry at JillWolcott-knits.Jill, tell us what drives you to create or defines you
What drives me is fashion. Not fashion, as in trends, but fashion, as in beautiful and interesting clothes. Fashion, as in the transformative experience of your clothing choice being able to shape how others perceive you and how you perceive yourself.
I have always loved fashion, from the princess dresses I perfected for my paper dolls, to now. I regret the impact of globalization and the resulting rush to cheap, ill-fitting, and unflattering fashion, and how truly interesting fashion is unattainable to most of us. I am always looking for interesting shapes, details, textures, fabrics, and different points of view, in fashion.
I am always conscious of proportion, suitability, and projecting my best self when considering fashion for myself. Although I like choice, I am less likely to buy if I cannot see how it will serve me over time. I think that too many people lack the skills to make fashion choices that afford them access to the transformative part of fashion. There is a perception that fashion cannot be comfortable, but that is not my experience.
Describe the place that is meaningful to you and your work
My place is my head. I live in my head in both good and bad ways.
I am always turning things over and considering them, so it is a very interesting place! I am always putting new concepts into my head, and waiting to see how things sort themselves out. I tend to spend a lot of time with concepts and ideas and even when I am not actively thinking about them, they are being worked over in my head. I often wake up with solutions I didn't know I was looking for. As a teacher, this means I have often thought things through from a lot of different angles before choosing how I want to present things and can tap into those different angles to help explain things to students.
I am able to amuse and entertain myself in my head, which sometimes keeps me from being more outgoing. I am an observer and often have to remind myself that I also have to participate.
Jill, tell us about a very important person in your life who made you the designer you are today
My VIP as a knitwear designer is Sandra D'Onofrio. Sandy was my first knitter. Up until Sandy came on board, I had knit my own samples. Having a knitter would give the time I spent knitting to do other things and increase my overall productivity. This needed to be someone I could rely on to be both my knitting hands and eyes--someone who could tell if something wasn't quite right, but who would slavishly follow my directions. Sandy was unbelievably good at both. Sandy was not an expert knitter but was exceedingly competent and was an able learner. She was a doubter and would always challenge me if I wasn't absolutely clear in my instructions. She was incredibly serious about her role, and would not make a guess, or proceed without clarification (written) from me.
Sandy and I worked together for several years before she had to quit knitting for me. I have other knitters, but Sandy was a key to helping me be the designer I am today. When I received the email letting me know that her life was shifting in ways that would not allow her to continue, I wept. Sandy was an artist when she wasn't being my knitter. I don't have a photo of Sandy, but these are some projects she knit for me. Miami was the result of her asking for a ballet sweater for her granddaughter, a college student. Here are some of her favorite designs:
What are you working on that we can expect to see?
I am beginning the work to write a long-planned book. I am never not designing. Otherwise, I blog two, sometimes three, times a week and send out a weekly newsletter. Most of my blog posts are about knitting, but sometimes they are personal. I recently completed the final post in my Travel Diary 2015 from a recent vacation with my husband. We went to five cities, so each post covers a city. I've finally gotten used to having a camera in my pocket and had pictures to add to it.
The photo of me in the big chair was taken at the Design Museum in Copenhagen.
For more information about Jill or to purchase her patterns, visit her website, jillwolcottknits.com or find her on Ravelry
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Come join me on Ravelry and let's knit together!
Lisa M. Barnes
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