I hope you will make the move with me. I’ll still be posting about the book, about the patterns, and about vampires, but I’ll also post about future endeavors.

The new site is http://genevieveknits.wordpress.com  and is still called Vampire Knits for now.

Thank you so much for following along! I hope to see you there!!

~Genevieve

How long have you been knitting and how’d you get started?
I learned to knit when I was 9, two years after learning to crochet. My Memaire taught me, one needle under my right arm and it was a disaster. She was a Continental knitter trying to teach me English style. After a few failed attempts she sat me down in front of her and said, “Do what I do.” So I did and now I’m a Backwards, Right-handed, Continental Knitter. It’s kinda crazy but it works.

How did you start designing?
There wasn’t a yarn shop where I grew up, only a K-Mart and the knitting resources there were lackluster at the best of times. In high school I took 3 years of Clothing Construction and Design classes. Once I understood how clothes were put together I was excited at the prospect of making the fabric to fit into those shapes. Of course I was a teenager and easily distracted so it took me a few years to really get around to doing it.

What was your first design?
A striped sleeping cap that was 7 feet long.
I started making crazy hats for a family member when I was a kid because they swore they’d wear anything I made. I pushed to see just how crazy I could get the hats before they wouldn’t be worn but they always were.

What did you design for Vampire Knits?  What inspired you?
I designed the Shapeshifter Shrug. I loved the idea of versatile piece based more on the wolf/shape-shifter side of the Vampire legends.

Who’s your favorite vampire, or what’s your favorite vampire story?
I have to go back to the original piece of modern vampire fiction here. I read Bram Stoker’s Dracula in high school and fell in love with the characters. To then see the Count portrayed by Gary Oldman on screen was pure enjoyment. He was the consummate shapeshifter, perfect for every encounter.

Shapeshifter Shrug

The girls and I thought it might be fun to alter some of the patterns in Vampire Knits to be doll-sized. The first one we tried was the Werewolf Hat.

Directions:

Using the same yarn as the Werewolf Hat (Knitpicks Suri Dream in Fedora)

**Note – this yarn is discontinued. If you don’t have any, you can use another yarn that’s similar. I also made a few in Cascade Bollicine.**

With size 9 or 10 dpns , cast on 39 sts (13 on each dpn)

Join yarn, careful not to twist.

Rounds 1 and 3: knit

Rounds 2 and 4: purl

Round 5 and on: knit.

Knit til it measures 2.5 inches. Begin decreases.

Round 1: k 11, k2tog, repeat twice (36 sts)

Round 2: k1, ssk, knit across dpn, repeat twice (33 sts)

Repeat these two rounds til there are 3 sts left on each dpn. Cut a long tail and using a tapestry needle, pull yarn through all stitches (like a drawstring). Weave in ends.

Ears (make 2)

c/o 1

kfb

purl

kfb (twice)

purl

kfb, k2, kfb

purl

kfb, k4, kfb

purl

knit

bind off knitwise. weave in ends, sew ears onto top of hat.

Maybe next I’ll make a doll sized Tourniquet.

This year, the book had been out for 10 months. My publisher brought a few cases of the book to sell and give away. (They sold two cases on Friday, so we gave some books away on Saturday.) I brought Vampy m&ms, 3 of the projects, and some magnets to give away. Potter Crafts Marketing Director, Donna, brought the books, lots of buttons, and markers for signing. Donna sported the Tourniquet scarf and walked around a bit, letting people know I was there for the signing.

I signed a LOT of books! It was fabulous! I signed for women, men, knitters, crocheters, people who had crafty friends or family, and people who just liked the book itself.

I signed a book for a man whose mother has used her own copy of the book so much it’s getting worn. I signed a book for a man who actually knew who I was and was familiar with the book and asked me to sign the Paw Warmers page, because it was going to be his next project. I have to say, this one blew me away the most. I was on Cloud 9 after meeting JJ.

Thanks to Donna at Potter Craft and thanks to all the people who came to visit me at the booth and sign the book. I hope you all love the book, and would love to see pictures of projects you’ve made (this goes for all of you – I may have to make a post calling for photos! !

I’ll be back to doing Designer Spotlights next week.

For now, I want to let you know that I’ll be signing copies of Vampire Knits at the Random House booth at Comic Con on Saturday, July 23rd. Let me know if you’ll be there – come and say hello!

They’re giving away 10 copies!!

Also, I keep another blog, not related to the book, over here. Come check it out!

Happy Thursday, and good luck!!

I started knitting when I moved onto campus at college, around 6 years ago. My mother had tried to teach me on and off years before, but for some reason I just didn’t have a grasp on the concept until I was 19. At college I had a lot of spare time in the evening, even after I finished my homework, and needed something to keep me busy. My kind mother once again lent me a pair of her needles and a random selection of yarn for a garter stitch scarf. I worked on the scarf at least three hours a day for about seven months, until I ran out of yarn. It wasn’t a very long or wide scarf, overall, except for where the gauge of the different sized yarns had disagreed, and the colours did not compliment each other at all; in fact, it may have been the most hideous scarf in Canada, but I loved it. I loved the holes where I skipped stitches, and where I sloppily tried to add more. I loved the big mess where I tried to join on a new ball of yarn, and how I would get my strands so tangled in my ‘knitting bag’. I did not once wear the scarf, but I kept it for years, to revisit and brag about to anyone within earshot. Amazingly, I had become quite proficient at basic knit and purl by the time I finished the scarf, and discovered that everything I knit after had a natural perfect gauge. I immediately dove into my next project, a simple mohair scarf for my boyfriend. The scarf turned out perfectly, and he loved it. He did lose the scarf on an airplane only a month after I gave it to him, but I married him anyway, and I still knit him scarves.

I did not design anything fully until I heard of the Vampire Knits book. Before, I would make a few sketches, and maybe knit a swatch or two, but nothing ever came of it. I mostly had ideas on scrap pieces of paper that would get lost or binned. I did do a lot of pattern modification, but for simple things like afghans and sweaters and only for my own personal use. I did once in awhile see something either on television or in a magazine that I quite fancied and would try to replicate it with a similar pattern. I came across the Vampire Knits project on Ravelry while searching for the palm stitch pattern on the pair of mittens that Bella wears in the Twilight movie. At the time I thought it was an ambitious idea, and I bookmarked the page to visit periodically because I was interested in whether or not the book would succeed. I also thought it would be really cool if I could design a pattern that would be published in a book; however, I did not have my design idea until around 8 months after I had discovered the Vampire Knits project. As it stands, I am determined to design again, and now I actually keep a proper sketch book and sharpened pencils at the ready to record any inspiration that comes my way.

My design for the Vampire Knits book is a diary cover, and it is also my first design. I had been visiting the Vampire Knits project for months, and every time I would think what could I design or what could I contribute, and I would usually come up blank. There were already a lot of really nice scarves and fingerless gloves, and I didn’t have enough time or money to try designing something large like an afghan or sweater. I was also trying to make a pattern relevant to the Twilight books, as the project was called Twilight Knits at the time. What actually got me thinking on the right path was when I saw that someone had submitted a felted Renee cell phone cozy. It got me thinking about the character, who is essentially a bit scatterbrained, which led me to her need for a diary and a diary cover. After that everything just fell into place, and it only took me three days to go from concept to finished design.

In order to make the design look like it belonged with the rest of the projects already submitted, I took a few established elements of the more recognizable pieces and combined them.  In a classic cream coloured wool, I took the horseshoe cable pattern from the Bella mittens, intersected it with the red ribbon from the cover of the Eclipse book, and set it on a textured linen stitch background.  In the end I found the pattern so easy to adapt and manipulate, that I also ended up adding a larger size version of the pattern made to fit over a hardcover copy of Eclipse. It is a pattern that I continue to adapt and manipulate for my use even now, because it is quite fun to knit I am very proud of it.

Happy Spring!

First of all, I apologize profusely for neglecting this blog! I have no good excuse for it – just let myself get busy with life and kids and family. But I’m back, and I promise to do better with keeping updates to the blog from here on out!

Today we meet Nikol Lohr, the designer of the gorgeous corset in the book! She runs the Harveyville Project and is the author of Naughty Needles.

How long have you been knitting and how’d you get started?

2004–a friend bough me a copy of stitch n bitch, and I taught myself

I came up with the concept for Naughty Needles & had to figure out how to produce my ideas.

Fembot nightie from Naughty Needles.

Prim Reaper Corset. I was inspired by Drusilla’s undergarments in one of my all-time-favorite episodes of Angel, Dear Boy.

I’m terribly fond Buffy/Angel, but I’m also really really enjoying True Blood. I like my monsters with a heavy dose of humor and very little sulking.

First, the “bad” – Now, we all know that there’s a misprint issue and that several copies (though we’re not sure how many) were printed without several pages and repeating several pages. It seems that this is the reason why Amazon has decided to review all their inventory, so they no longer ship out faulty copies.  Hopefully this will be rectified soon and they’ll start selling them again. Until then, you can still find them at Michael’s, Barnes & Noble, and Borders, among many other sellers.  You can also buy the Kindle version.

The good news is that we’re heading into our second edition printing! Sooner than I thought we would, but perhaps this is happening sooner because of the misprints. Regardless, the new printings will have the Errata from the first edition fixed.

Thanks for your support, and happy knitting!

~Genevieve