Kim Werker

DORA: How would you describe that voice?

KIM: A bit trendy, light-hearted, it’s very encouraging, and it’s informal. I like things to be informal. I like to feel I can approach people and I like people to feel they can approach me and I think that’s part of why the site works.

DORA: I think so. It’s a very welcoming thing that you do.

KIM: Thank you.

DORA: And you’re a web designer too, right?

KIM: Yes, I was, and I’m self-taught. I guess you could say I’m a self-starter. I was working with clients who were mainly small businesses and helping them create websites, but not dynamic, interactive ones. It’s been really exciting for me to play with the dynamic end of web development with Crochet Me, and experiment with the software, the functions and features, and how the Crochet Me community responds to that. It’s a real adventure for me because I’m a computer geek.

DORA: So you were like a freelance web consultant? Did you do that for a long time?

KIM: Not for a long time. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I grew up.

DORA: What did you study in school?

KIM: I went to school for linguistics, which prepared me for very little. Then I went to grad school in educational studies where I still pursued psycholinguistics, language development .

DORA: That’s so interesting because I mentioned to you I’m a voice teacher right, and I meant to say to you earlier, you have such an interesting color to your voice. Do you sing?

KIM: Not at all.

DORA: Well you could be a very lovely alto.

KIM: You’ve never heard me sing. You’d probably leave screaming.

DORA: I doubt that. Let me ask you about yarns, do yarn choices affect your selections for Crochet Me?

KIM: Yes. I have a personal bias against very textured yarn, because I like stitches too much. Especially around the time when Crochet Me was starting, it was all fun fur scarfs and fun fur ponchos. I don’t think they’re very flattering. I appreciate that other people really love them, but I love stitches. There’s so much to learn and so many stitches to learn in crochet, and I love yarns that will really show it off. I love colors and I love how they come together beautifully. I love experimenting with variegated yarns in crochet; they were so well-received in knitting but they behave so differently in crochet. I like challenges, constraints and problem-solving, and the variegated yarns provide that.

DORA: What about weights of yarn.

KIM: Chunky yarns are -- I want to say dangerous but there are no real dangers in crochet. My rule -- and I say this to designers -- always use a bigger hook. Drape does not come as easily to crochet as to other crafts. I find myself leaning toward never crocheting with anything heavier than a worsted weight yarn, and I prefer a DK or sport weight yarn.

DORA: If you can find them!

KIM: More and more you’ll see them.

DORA: What other writing are you doing outside the site.

KIM: There are the books, and I’m working on a new one with Interweave. I have my column in Knit.1 and I’m writing for Yarn Market News, and for Crochet Today, and I have an essay in Interweave Crochet. That allows me to explore from different angles, not just the Crochet Me focus. That’s nice, to have that variety.

DORA: That’s great. Do they ask you for a story, or do you propose an idea?

KIM: Brett Bara, the Editor of Crochet Today, has emailed me and said, for example for the fall issue, we need something on beading, can you do that? That happens. For Karin Strom of YMN I’ll sit with her and we’ll talk and an article will come out of it. For Interweave Crochet, Judi Swartz had written an article for Crochet Me (http://crochetme.com/crochet-in-fashion) and then she emailed me and said “Hey, we need someone to write the Ravelings essay on the back page. How would you want to do that?” I said, “What do you want it to be?” and she said “Anything!” Wow, that’s hard, when someone says “anything.” I had in mind that I wanted to really say something.

DORA: Oh, I loved what you said -- take back the crochet! But let me ask you first about the books.

KIM: First there was Teach Yourself Visually Crocheting. The publisher is Wiley and they’re the same people who do the Dummies books. Their acquisitions editor emailed me about two years ago -- is it really that long ago? -- saying she was looking for someone to write a crochet book and she found my website and would I know of anyone or would I be interested. I sat back and I said, OK, but I knew it was a big project she wanted and I wouldn’t be able to do it myself. I thought of Cecily [Keim - http://www.suchsweethands.com], who I’d met a few months earlier and we’d really clicked. I called her and said “How would you like to pitch a book with me?” We had marathon conversations for two days and instant messaged each other and came up with this proposal and sent it in, and the rest is history.

DORA: How is that book selling?

KIM: Pretty amazing. It’s been out for nine or ten months now and people tell me that they’ve learned from it, and teachers tell me they recommend it to their students, which makes me so happy. It’s been a pleasure to work with Wiley. They’re a massive international company. The books is being translated into Russian, which makes me thrilled!

DORA: And the second book?

KIM: Get Hooked (http://www.get-hooked.net), with Watson-Guptill. My editor, Julie, emailed me one day that she was looking for someone to write a teen book about crochet . I’d worked with teenagers for years and so this to me sounded like the most fun ever.

DORA: Really. What were you doing with teens?

KIM: I was a camp counselor until I ws twenty-five And I ran an after school program and had a teen staff. I planned trips for teens, every aspect of it, very hands on, very nurturing but it also really exhausted me. I realized I missed that, and so it was really fun to reconnect with the playful side, and also encouraging and motivating side.

DORA: So you were the perfect person to write this book.

KIM: I don’t know if I was the perfect person, but it was the perfect project for me, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

DORA: Tell me about your involvement with knitting and crochet, how that passion developed.

KIM: It’s funny because I discovered after a while that I had already learned to crochet years back when a friend at summer camp taught me how to make yarmulkes, with a tiny steel hook and thread. I didn’t know it was crochet, I just knew I was making kippahs. I made one, a little lopsided orange kippah which my best friend wore once. When I was in my mid-twenties I had moved to Vancouver and was just getting involved with meeting new friends. A friend of mine was an expert knitter and she mentioned taking a class at a yarn store. Once I knew how to knit I thought I really had to learn how to crochet too. I did learn, and then I remembered that I had known. It clicked, it was like a spark ignited and there was no holding me back. It was hard for me at the beginning with Crochet Me because I immediately understood crochet, nothing seemed hard. It was just a matter of following things. I had to really accept that not everyone sees it like that.

DORA: What do you like to make?

KIM: I am totally hooked on making amigurumi dolls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amigurumi). I thinks it’s because I’m totally ADD and I never finish anything. They’re small and I can do anything I want with them. I can play with color and texture or anything else I want, and then I’m done. My friends like them and I can give them away, and that forces me to finish. On this tour (http://www.myspace.com/monstersofteencraft) alone, from mindlessly not having to concentrate on anything, I made two hats, wrist warmers, and a scarf.

DORA: Now tell me about the manifesto. What can we really do to “take back the crochet”? Are publishers really open to the books that need to get done?

KIM: I do think the industry is really warming up to crochet. I can’t attribute it to any one or even several factors, but it might go hand in hand with the advancement of knitting. Knitting was where crochet is now several years ago and the market became saturated with beginner knitting books -- how to make scarves, quick chunky needles and big big things. We never did the big hook thing in crochet and I think that’s good thing. Now that the knitting books are focusing on more advanced knitting techniques I’m hoping that at the same time that they’re really interested in beginner crochet books they will also consider the more advanced ones. We don’t have the Elizabeth Zimmermann of crochet. We don’t have the books that are still in print today that newcomers can learn from and find easily.

DORA: I’m nervous that the whole craze is going to die before those books get written.

KIM: I think the trend is still on the rise. Interest is building not plateauing. Crocheters are still really excited about what they are doing and many are only just discovering that it’s happening. Look at Interweave Crochet, now coming out twice a year, and Crochet Today launching with six issues annually. The publishing industry is seeing a market, and I think crocheters are eating it up. I think there will be room for more books. I said in my essay, now’s the time, because crochet is everywhere, part of fashion and decor and everything. I think that’s unique, it wasn’t like that the last few times it was really popular, though I didn’t live through it.

DORA: Any other ideas about how we can “take back the crochet?”

KIM: I want to bring people together. Crochet Me is a lot of people together, people from very different areas and backgrounds and ages and skill levels. That’s why Crochet Me happened and it’s because readers found it and said “I want to read that, I want to learn something from that.” That’s where I think the industry is going. People are coming forward and saying I have this talent, I want to share it. People aren’t just out to make a buck, it’s not like there’s a huge fortune to be made. People are doing it out of passion, out of a desire to share both their art and their knowledge. That’s really important. The more crocheters who can really write, that’s a key. It’s one thing to be able to come up with gorgeous designs; it’s another to make those designs into patterns that can be read easily and edited easily by publications, and it’s another to write an article about something: about your inspiration, your technique, about your travels and the crochet you did and the yarns you saw. If a designer might ask me whether there’s one skill to focus on, I’d say writing.

DORA: That’s why I decided to do Crochet Insider. For example, I want to write something that busts the bad myths about crochet, because even now some people believe it's only for bags and hats, totally ignoring its glorious past. I want to say what has to be said, but still be diplomatic, and maybe convince key industry people.

KIM: The truth of the matter, when you boil it down, is that the industry is controlled by the bottom line. At the yarn store, if they say you can’t use that yarn to crochet, they’re hurting themselves, because the crocheter is going to buy more of that yarn since crochet uses more. That’s one way the bottom line is eventually going to have an effect. When it comes to publications, the bottom line will come into play when crocheters start buying, and they must be buying because more books are being produced. I think that there are a lot of knitters who make editorial decisions, but over time you’ll probably find more crocheters in this position. There’s a perception that the knitters who make decisions are very knitting-centered. It might also be that those knitters recognize that they’re not comfortable making crochet decisions, not necessarily that they are poo-pooing crochet, although some might be. It might also be that there’s a naivety there, it’s not the right decisions because nobody knows enough about crochet to boost it up, but I really think over time that’s changing.

DORA: Yes, the lack of knowledge about crochet is sometimes a factor, that’s why I want to expound on that in my article. Do you have any thoughts on the roots of the conflict between knitting and crochet?

KIM: I wrote about that in the essay . I plan to spend a long time in the library really looking at the history. I’m excited to have the ability to do that. To spend three days and research everything I can. A lot of sources say crochet came to America in the late nineteenth century and it was a lace knockoff. Some people get very testy about that, but that’s what it was, it was really faster and cheaper way to produce lace than other techniques of the time. That’s not to knock it. It was gorgeous!

DORA: What they did went way beyond other lace.

KIM: Exactly. The lace was stunning. It was worth every bit as much as the other more expensive lace, but it did take a lot less time and you pay for time. It’s very intriguing to look at the differences between crochet and knitting from a class perspective. Crochet came from the working classes and the poverty classes, and knitting was that thing that everybody did. By the time crochet came on the scene there were knitting machines. We’ll always have knitted sweaters, whether someone knit them or not, but you’re not going to have that in crochet, which is why it comes in and out so dramatically and knitting doesn’t. It’s really entertaining to talk about the knitting and crochet wars, but I wonder if there really is a war.

DORA: I guess for me as a designer there’s sometimes a frustration at being put into a hole -- like the emphasis on home dec. People must be interested in fashion, or they wouldn’t be coming to Crochet Me, right?

KIM: Home dec is really popular. But the more advanced you get, the fewer people can do it, that’s just how it is, because there isn’t a big body of information about technique and people don’t feel confident taking the next step. They don’t have that really great book in front of them that shows them the difference between a drop sleeve and a cap sleeve, and a raglan sleeve. We see that with this Sweet Sweater on Crochet Me (http://www.crochetme.com/sweet). A lot of people are doing it as their very first sweater; they never would have considered it, and that’s why we’re doing a crochet -along, so they feel supported. People are asking questions and some of the questions are as simple as, “I don’t really understand how to measure the back of my neck.” That’s a really important skill to have. And like a lot of people in my generation, my mom wasn’t showing me how to measure myself, and that’s not knocking my mom. The more we can present that kind of information, not as advanced or intimidating, but just as information, the more comfortable crocheters will feel tackling challenging projects.

DORA: There does seem to be an ongoing conflict with publishers as to whether to present advanced stuff, or to continue to cater to the majority who want simpler projects.

KIM: I wonder if a lot of crocheters are like me, in that they like to see what crochet can do, even if they aren’t interested in it themselves. I love reading through a pattern, and sometimes I have no idea how it works, but others I say, “How clever is that!” I see that especially in Interweave Crochet, where there are more advanced patterns. I’m a problem solver at heart, and I love to see how problems are solved in crochet. Comfortable crocheters really love looking at that, either because they want to learn new techniques themselves, or because they appreciate seeing how someone else’s mind works and how they might translate that for themselves and into their work. And in crochet, you don’t have to account for all those stitches on your needle, so there are very different ways of solving problems in crochet than there are in knitting.

DORA: Yes! That’s one of the things I really want to bring out in the article I’m writing. If you come to garment designing as a knitter you’re may become frustrated, because crochet structure is very different. A crochet designer’s mindset starts with very different premises.

KIM: True! One of the designs I’m really excited about for the Crochet Me book we are planning now, is a sweater by Kristin Omdahl (http://www.styledbykristin.com). I told her I really want a nonlinear construction, not starting at the bottom and not starting at the top, and not lots of motifs. Of course what I have in my head, I know it’s going to be totally different from that because it came out of a dialogue we had. That is so exciting for me.

DORA: I am so on the same page with you! My first designs which I just made for myself with very little training, I studied a lot of books, some of them knitting books, and I did a lot of experimenting with different ways of shaping. Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss bought several of those designs for their books that are just coming out. But it was very hard to write patterns for those pieces. After that, I started becoming more conservative in order to get published. But in my heart, I’d love to keep exploring these alternatives, do stuff like what you see in those wonderful Japanese pattern books.

KIM: Well, that’s something the industry really could get behind, more diagramming. It saves a lot of space if a pattern is, for example, a twelve row repeat in lace and every row is different. You can present that in a half or a full page in a diagram, whereas it might take several pages to write everything out. The more we can educate consumers about diagrams -- although I respect that some people hate that. Some people need the words, but a lot of people also don’t recognize the constraints of space for publishers. That’s why the web is great, and that’s what I love about Crochet Me, we can have these long, sprawling patterns and that’s OK. That provides an outlet that is harder to come by in print, because it’s really expensive to print a long, involved crochet pattern.

DORA: Now changing subjects, there’s the whole issue of pay.

KIM: It’s really an issue of budget.

DORA: Up to a point, but I also feel designers often accept too little pay. I don’t think the photographer, or printer, or marketing person is told we can’t afford to pay you a professional fee.

KIM: True. When I approach writing a book where I'm working collaboratively with designers and I’ve got a book contract, I try to get as much money as I possibly can for the designers. I think I have been able to get more than a lot of people for the designers. I really believe in that. But I’ve also thought, what if we can pitch something where everyone gets some kind of royalty. Those famous people in film get a lump sum until that film grosses a certain amount. I’d love it if a book could work the same way. Once the book sells ten thousand copies, everyone involved would get a check. It’s complicated, managing a whole lot of royalties, and it’s not the way things have been done, so it would involve rewriting all the legal forms.