Kim Werker

• Add new comment

“The more crocheters who can really write - that’s a key.  It’s one thing to be able to come up with gorgeous designs . . . 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: What was the inspiration for Crochet Me?

KIM:  The inspiration was fruitless web searching. I didn’t have in mind a magazine when I started it. I couldn’t find fun crochet that I Iiked on the internet so I said, “Well, I know how to make websites so I’m going to make one and just see what happens.”  At the time I was a beginning crocheter, I didn’t write patterns and I didn’t have content to fill up the site, so I wrote:  “If you have stuff you’re creating because you don’t like what’s out there, then I can help you share it, since I have this website.  And people answered the call. I was really really surprised.*

DORA:  When was this?

KIM:  It was in February 2004.

DORA:  What were you looking for that you couldn’t find?

KIM:  First off, the problem was that there were no good photos on the Net.  When I would find crochet patterns online it was with a fuzzy photo.  But I was also looking for fun things, not necessarily easy, but things that were fashionable, not dated. I had been knitting for about a year and was immersed in “the new knitting,” where knitting was being marketed to everyday people and I didn’t see that happening for crochet, at least online. I didn’t know everything, I didn’t know about the whole industry and what was out there.

DORA: Tell me more about the response when you first launched Crochet Me.

KIM: People started emailing me from all over the world.  I heard from a yarn store owner in Australia who had a link to Crochet Me on her store site even though I had very little content.  I heard from people saying, “I don’t make patterns but I am so excited, I hope something comes of it.”  Or, “I never wrote a pattern before, but I wrote all this down because now’s there’s a place to put it, would you consider publishing it?”  And people who said, “I’ve got a sketchbook filled with ideas and here they are.”  Annette [Petavy] (http://www.motsetmailles.canalblog.com), who’s written a regular column in Crochet Me since it became formal, wrote me a long email, maybe two weeks after I started the site. She started writing articles, and that’s how it came to be.  A lot of  it was being in the right place at the right time.  A lot of crocheters started blogging at the same time, and the crochet message boards started up at the same time. There was a community that emerged.

DORA: What do you see as the main purpose of Crochet Me?

KIM:  To have a community hub online for crochet that tries to help people on both ends of the spectrum: for creators to have an outlet for the boundaries they want to push, and consumers to find crochet that they may not be finding in print magazines or books.  The industry is very different now than it was when I started Crochet Me.  There are new print magazines that are far more contemporary focusing on fashion crochet and more fashionable techniques in crochet.  I don’t feel a burning desire to be ahead of the game, but there is freedom in independent publishing, especially on the web.  Crochet patterns are long, and I don’t have limitations on how long patterns can be, so we can publish patterns with a lot of exposition about how to do things, inspiration about things, and that’s exciting to me as well. It’s important  to encourage seasoned designers and brand new designers to do new things and to give consumers an opportunity to try new things.

DORA:  Do you get many submissions?

KIM:  I can’t really put a number on it, because it differs very much for each issue, and it differs depending on how specific I am in my call for submissions.  Sometimes if I’m really specific in a call for submissions I get a flood of submissions, but sometimes if I’m really specific I may alienate people.  I’m still playing around with that, but I have no trouble filling an issue of about a dozen patterns, and sometimes I can go bigger than that, and sometimes not as big as that.

DORA:  Are you able to pay for designs at this point?

KIM:  Not yet.  That doesn’t have to do with submissions but with revenues.  Part of that is  I’m a terrible sales person, but  Amy O’Neill Houck, who writes the Hook & I blog http://hookandi.blogspot.com/), is just started helping me out with ad sales on the site.  It’s really important to me to keep the content free.  There are all sorts of expenses associated with the site, but I am hoping to be able to pay designers.

DORA:  What makes you pick a certain design?

KIM:  I think what I value most are presentation and innovation.  I love designs that show or utilize a technique I don’t see very much, or that use a common technique in a unique way.  I’m trying not to make decisions based on color, because that’s such an individual thing and I know my color preferences are not necessarily those of our readers. Except for mint green, and I say that in submissions (http://www.crochetme.com/submit.html), that’s the only personal bias I impose.  I also consider wearability and how useful something might be.  I don’t have anything against very conceptual pieces, but I like garments to be the type that someone would actually wear. A lot of the submissions are very straightforward designs, but I don’t shy away from more complicated designs because there are advanced and intermediate crocheters out there who need a little nudge to try something new.  I understand the need for difficulty ratings, but I don’t have them on the site yet, because I plan to put in concentration ratings.  It’s not about how hard something is, but about how focused you need to be to get it done.  Certain patterns you can do during a conversation or in front of the TV, and certain patterns you need a quiet room with no distractions.

DORA:  Are you looking at trends?

KIM:  I’m looking somewhat at trends but more with the idea of avoiding things that are overdone in my opinion, rather than going after trends that are just starting.  The poncho -- don’t need to see any more. Unless somebody comes out with a poncho that doesn’t make me go “Ugh!”  Because we have very little lead time, I’m able to get something out there around the same time that magazines are getting it out there, even though the magazine started working on it five or six months ago. In the summer when we knew crocheted lace was everywhere on the runways, and we knew white lace was really in fashion, I said, “OK, send me some lace, because it’s what people are going to be looking for and I want people to realize they can make it.” That’s when Annette did her orange shawl (http://www.crochetme.com/irish-oranges), with a focus on Irish crochet, but on a much bigger scale than traditional Irish crochet.  Something which is inspired by trends but realized itself in a very unique way that wasn’t so trendy.

DORA: Is this an important outlet for you as a writer?

KIM: Absolutely!  I get to experiment.  I  did more writing in the earlier days when it was a one-woman show and I was putting everything together.  Then Julie Holetz (http://www.skamama.com) came along, she does the tech editing for the site and has for a long time now.  She’s amazing.  Then suddenly I had one fewer thing to do and then I started getting paid work and started doing a lot of writing off the site. I still blog (http://www.crochetme.com/blog) and I write the editorial and I talk to a lot of other people about writing up their experiences, like at the Chain Link conference.  I developed a voice for Crochet Me which is not necessarily the voice I speak in every day. but it’s a fun experience for me.

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.

DORA:  Anything that  would help the prevailing perception about what are appropriate fees would be welcome.  When really accomplished, highly respected designers say they budget their time at $10 an hour, I think that’s a kind of shameful comment on the industry.  But on to other things. What are your thoughts on TNNA and their role in the industry.

KIM:  I haven’t been in the industry long enough to really understand their reach as a trade organization. They do a lot to promote. I personally have had stellar experiences going to the trade shows.  I will continue to go to the trade shows twice a year while I’m in this industry because I have made connections and come up with exciting projects with other people just from going. I do think they’re behind in crochet. I’m a member of the yarn group. I would love it if every time they talk about knitters in the yarn group they would also talk about crocheters.

DORA:  Who’s in the yarn group?

KIM: Yarn store owners and yarn company people.

DORA:  Is there another group for designers?

KIM: They just started it.  The CGOA professional group, that’s a really valuable group.  For designers, you have to learn how to write a really good pattern.

DORA:  Is it the numbers that make it hard?

KIM:  Not just the numbers -- it’s the presentation of information. Writing instructions as concisely as possible while also making them as clear as possible. That’s a talent everyone can work on.  You get a pattern which spells out every step every time and that can’t be printed that way because of space constraints. The technical editor has to spend hours understanding the pattern in order to boil it down.

DORA:  It’s true. But also, the various publications do things differently, so the instruction writer has to master all these different ways of presenting the information. Jean, who trained me, wanted everything spelled out. 

KIM:  That’s right. Some include all the chains in the foundation chain and say make the first stitch in the third chain from your hook, but another says make your foundation chain, next row chain 2.  It’s all a matter of preferences and what the editors feel is the clearer way to say it.

DORA:  How often do you publish Crochet Me?

KIM: Now we publish quarterly, but in the beginning it was bimonthly, so I was constantly having deadlines. The minute you’d finish one issue you’d have to jump into the next. It was constant scrambling. I talked to Julie and Jenna who were helping me out, and said could we go to quarterly?  We have to do it right so people didn’t think we were failing. And we did, and nobody complained.

DORA: I’ve been wondering about that factor too, because I was thinking about putting out a new issue of Crochet Insider every month, but I also have teaching obligations that take a lot of my time,  and I’m working on three designs for publication right now.

KIM: Yes, you want to say yes to everything, but you have to balance that with what you can do and still want to enjoy it.

DORA:  And now you have all these people working with you on the magazine.

KIM:  Yes, I have regular contributors and other contributors too. A lot of people, like Annette and Julie, were on board almost from the start.  When Julie started doing the tech editing it changed my life.  A lot of contributors are regular. Amy comes to me and says I’d like to do something for the next issue. Robyn Chachula (http://www.crochetbyfaye.blogspot.com), is incredible!! Her first design in Crochet Me was her first published design--a leash and poop bag, really simple. And now she’s coming up with gorgeous, shaped, beautiful garments -- that’s so exciting-- and she’s publishing them in books and in magazines.  Chloe Nightingale (http://galvanic.co.uk/) who lives in Scotland and has been helping us with tech editing, is now sending me designs, they are awesome.  Annette lives in France. I don’t know if we’ll ever meet, but we have a relationship.

DORA:  Yes, I love the way crochet links people across the  world.  Hey, let’s have an international conference!

KIM:  That would be so exciting.  We’ve got to find someone to pay for it.

*The original Crochet Me page is here: http://www.crochetme.com/issue_1/index.html. Kim's original post is at the bottom of the page, dated 28 February 2004.

• Add new comment