Apr 27, 2018
Mitch of Surfing Ducks is my guest on the podcast this week,
where we discuss a plethora of things that spiral slightly out of
control and end somewhere around knitted, transferable 'tramp
stamps.'
Yes...
Mitch designs sock patterns with a particular twist; every heel
flap is adorned with a quirky design. This led to the brand
developing into an almost secret society under the #HiddenHeels
theme. The idea is you can have these socks on, and have a heel
that is usually hidden from view, but then is brought out on show
at exactly the right moment. this moment may well be to secure
access to some underground speakeasy with a gin urn.
Mitch is several patterns in now (more have been added since this
interview was recorded a few months ago) and each time a new one is
released, there is a badge to go along with it. Be one of the first
to finish and share pictures of your #HiddenHeels design and
collect your limited edition badge.
I don't know about you, but I want all those badges.
We also discuss how Mitch balances her design work against her
demanding day job. She began her foray back into socks a couple of
years ago after previously finding them difficult. A chance meeting
with the lovely Christine Perry of Winwick Mum at Sirdar led to her
catching the bug again, thanks to Christine's infectious enthusiasm
for the medium of socks.
Mitch had also worked in customer support for a large online
retailer and was the pattern support specialist. Through the
experience, she was able to gather lots of knowledge and learn
exactly what sort of thing trip knitters up when knitting a
pattern, and has been able to bring all that to her design work.
Her aim is to make knitting easy, and each of her designs adds one
new technique, to ease the knitter into developing their skills in
an easy feeling way.
Although her patterns look complicated, only the small heel canvas
contains the colour changing. Because it is so small, it can be a
great way to introduce techniques without it feeling too
overwhelming. Brand new sock knitters have knit several of her
patterns and had success, so if you are even a little bit
intrigued, chances are you will be able to do them.
For her design work, Mitch uses Stitchmastery and Stitch Fiddler
(snigger) although she also advocates Excel as useful for
charts.
All of her patterns are available via Ravelry, and there are plans
to produce ebooks of the collections at a later stage. Mitch is
already teaching socks knitting and would love to do more of this
as her business expands.
You can find Mitch at www.surfingducks.com.
Links and full show notes for this episode are at
www.shinybees.com/109