Faye Perriam//Knit Nerds

This week's lovely knit nerd is Faye, or Buttons and Beeswax as she is known on Ravelry. Faye is a lovely designer, and she bakes - she has an awesome recipe for nutella cupcakes on her blog right now - go check it out. Here she is:

How long have you been knitting and who taught you?

My mum taught me to knit when I was about 5 – I used to make clothes for my Barbies from simple patterns she had. I suppose I got disinterested, until I went to a party about 10 years ago and thought it was so cool that one of my friends had a bag of knitting! I made her teach me there and then, and then scoured old books I’d been given by my Mum the next day while nursing a hangover. I was interested by the whole process and knitted swatch after swatch in different stitch patterns, practicing increasing, decreasing and picking up dropped stitches, and haven’t really stopped since.

 What is your favourite thing to knit?

At the moment I’m really enjoying lace stitch patterns, I love how they don’t take shape until a few rows in and how they can really affect the drape of the garment. I really love making cardigans, but I’ve got a few and haven’t made myself one for a while. I might combine the two sometime and make a nice summery lacy number.

Who is your biggest knitting inspiration?

This is a tough one! Recently I’ve been doing some work with Erika Knight, who has given me some great encouragement and advice, and I’m really inspired by how she keeps creating, coming up with new ideas and always seems to be on the go! However I’ve met so many other designers through Ravelry, I love this community of people who are all quite happy to share their experience and help in some way, no matter how big or small they are in the industry. I find that more of an inspiration more than any set one person.

 What is your favourite finished object of your own?

It would have to be the cardigan I made called ‘Lichen’which is an adapted version of a pattern by Lisa Richardson, or my ‘Owls’jumper designed by Kate Davies. I started designing a cardigan for myself which I know will become a firm favourite, but it’ll be a while before I get time to finish that one off as my process can be a bit slow.

What has been your favourite thing to design so far?

I’m quite a small fry, so I don’t have many designs out yet, but I’d say the one I wear the most would have to be my Nordic Lace Hat. It was the first design I published and I love it every time a new photo pops up on Ravelry. I had the yarn sat in my stash for 2 years before I knew what to do with it, and then a hat, cowl and mittens set appeared within a few weeks!

 What led you to start designing your own pieces?

It would probably be a mixture of the natural transgression from heavily adapting other patterns, and the encouragement from Erika to get on and give it a go! I haven’t followed a pattern for some time now and I often miss the simplicity of following something that has already been worked out, however I like the challenge too much to give up designing things!

If you could give 3 pieces of knitting advice, what would they be?

Learn how to pick up dropped stitches. The amount of people I know who can knit, but need help fixing their mistakes is silly – it helps you to understand how everything fits together.

It might be a bit obvious to some, but until someone pointed out to me that you can use the long tail cast on method (my favourite) with two balls, I was forever guessing how long to make the tail, which is especially frustrating when you’ve a lot to cast on and you guess wrong!

Don’t be too scared to go out of your comfort zone and try new things, you might surprise yourself!

This time around I have chosen the prize for the giveaway, you could win the pattern for Dad's Photographers Gloves, these gloves are excellent for those winter photoshoots, if you would like to win just leave a little comment and I'll draw next Sunday evening after 6pm BST.

You can also find Faye in these places:

www.buttonsandbeeswax.com

www.facebook.com/buttonsandbeeswax

www.twitter.com/buttonsnbeeswax

www.ravelry.com/people/ButtonsandBeeswax

Make sure you stop by Faye's blog and Rav page and give her some love, she really is wonderful. Thanks again Faye for the awesome interview and giveaway.

V xo