I am very proud to introduce to you the start of my monthly Conversation Series, in which I will be talking with people I admire because of their outstanding services to my own inspiration!
She is a constantly colourful; a successful knitter and designer; an accomplished professional photographer; a Crafterpreneur, and all-round motivator to DO STUFF…Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I am delighted to present to you Lee Meredith, a.k.a Leethal.
Hello Lee,
What did you do before you were a knit pattern designer?
I majored in media visual arts, with an emphasis on photography, and a plan to make photography my career - after a few years of working in photo labs and picking up small freelance jobs here and there, while knitting as a hobby and selling finished objects I made, I started realizing that I was more interested in the craft world for a career than the professional photography world, so I focused on that until I could leave the photo labs behind.
How did you first learn to knit?
In college, I had a roommate who knit and crocheted a bit, which got me interested; it had never been something I'd considered trying, even though I'd tried nearly every other kind of craft throughout my life. She taught me a couple basics, and my mom helped me out a little with what she remembered from when she'd knit a bit when she was in college, but then I was self-taught from books and the internet after that.
How do you approach creating knit patterns?
Normally, a pattern idea starts with the concept in my head, sometimes sketched out to make the idea more clear, then, depending on what it is, I'll either swatch a bunch to figure it out further, or I'll jump right into working up a first prototype. Because I design accessories and other small things, and because I'm often experimenting with unique construction methods, I'll often knit 3 or more versions of a design throughout my design process to reach the final version and get the pattern just right.
When did you realize you could make your hobby your job, and how did you make the transition from ditching your day job to becoming self employed?
It wasn't so much a realization as an unplanned series of events which surprisingly resulted in my no longer having a day job. I had been working on my crafty stuff, had just started getting into knit design a little, doing lots of assorted craft-related stuff and blogging a lot, when a couple of different opportunities arose right around the same time.
One of them was a freelance teaching job, which was offered to me by a friend who needed some craft classes covered throughout the summer, most of these classes falling on weekends. I had been thinking about dropping down to part-time at my job, so this would allow me to go through with that - but when I told my boss I wanted to drop my hours and have most Saturdays off, he said no way, wasn't going to happen. So I said, okay I guess I have to quit then! Totally not my plan, but that's what happened.
I stayed on for the 2 months or so until the teaching jobs began, figuring out what my plan would be… I thought, the teaching, and another freelance writing job that had just fallen into my lap, would take me to fall, and then I'd probably get a part-time job at a yarn store or something… but when fall came, I was doing okay, making ends meet with my own business and random freelance jobs, and I continued to make it work, so the part-time job thing just never had to happen!
Over the last few years, I've transitioned slowly to fewer freelance jobs and more of my income coming from knit design, but I'm still not where I want to be eventually, and those photography jobs are a very necessary part of my making ends meet.
Would you ever write a crochet pattern?
Maybe someday… I actually started designing a crochet version of my Waving Chevron Scarf a few years ago, shortly after releasing the knit pattern, but I set it aside for some reason and never picked it back up. Oops!
Who is your knitting hero?
This is so unoriginal of me, but I have to say Elizabeth Zimmerman. I didn't really discover her until I had already been designing for a couple years; I wish I had read her earlier on in my knitting life - she's so inspirational! I try to approach knit design more like her than like anyone else, with my any-gauge super versatile patterns, and always trying to "unvent" new ways of doing things, etc.
What's next for leethal?
I'm finally super close to pre-releasing my upcoming ebook, which I've been slowly working on all year, and which won't actually be finished anytime soon, but I'll be releasing the patterns one at a time to all who pre-order the book. Besides that huge project, I'm also beginning work on a collaborative ebook with a couple of designer friends, which I'm extremely excited about!
Where do you hope to be in 10 years?
Hah, I don't know where I plan to be in 1 year! My whole career has been doing one thing at a time and seeing where they all take me… I am currently at such a different place than I ever would have imagined I'd be 10 years ago, so I have no concrete 10 year projections. Except, you know, I hope to be doing better financially than I am now, under a bit less stress in that department.
How does the constant shifting and updating in technology affect how you work/ publish/ promote/ connect/ create?
I kind of tend to ignore a lot of it, or I'd go crazy trying to keep up. I'm a twitter user, but not much else in the social networking world. Of course, my main format for publishing patterns is PDFs, but that's been the case the whole time I've been a designer, so there hasn't been much updating in that area. I just got an iPad, which I'm absolutely loving, but I haven't really used it for any work purposes yet, beyond checking emails and basic things like that… maybe I'll discover some cool ways it can useful for design-related stuff though.
DIY education or traditional education?
Both? Whatever's best for you!
Do you have the best job in the world?
Hah! It is very stressful, but I think all good jobs are, I'd imagine. It's the best job I can think of for me, personally.
Top 5 music that you're currently rocking out to:
Ooh that's tough. It's always changing, but here are 5 that come to mind that I've been listening to a bunch the last couple weeks:
- Adele's 21
- Bon Iver's Bon Iver
- Gossip
- Bat for Lashes
- Fleedwood Mac.
Top 5 website that are currently rocking your world:
Hmmm that's even harder...
- Pinterest.
- I've been spending a lot of time on applegazette.com because of my new iPad, reading app reviews and stuff.
- Can I say ravelry?
- I love The Oatmeal.
- Black and WTF is a fun blog.
I mostly just click to webpages from twitter and pinterest and try not to get sucked into exploring whole sites because then I wouldn't get any work done!
When you are not knitting/ designing/ crafting/ businessing/ photographing/ working.....what do you get up to?!
Well there's not a ton of time leftover... I'm a big game/trivia nerd - I meet up with friends for bar trivia one night most weeks, and I play board games (and iPad versions of board games) with my guy, Pete, and with friends. I watch a lot of movies, but that's mostly while knitting or working at the same time. I've been fitting in some reading time lately, which I normally can't find the time for since I can't knit and read at the same time! I occasionally do food-related things - I don't regularly cook a whole lot, but I recently made refrigerator pickles, and I sometimes make liqueurs and other random things like that. Oh, and I often dig through dollar bins to add to my record collection, and thrift for anything fun I might find at my local thrift shops... that's about it!
Thank you Lee for being my first Conversationee, and for brightening up my little bloglet with all your colour and creativeness! xxx
You can catch up with Lee online:
great interview!
ReplyDeleteThank you Nancy, I've got you on my hitlist! :) xxx
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