One of my most fun days interviewing designers in Sweden was in Uppsala, where Bruce and I dropped in for coffee with Kristin Blohm. She is located in a wonderful historic building with huge windows and high ceilings, in a lively part of the old city that is filled with (almost) as much energy as she has. Like most of the people I met, she has been knitting since childhood, but only recently begin designing knitwear herself when she hooked up with British designer Anna Maltz to produce Anna’s book, Penguin: A Knit Collection. Kristin is a graphics designer for her “day job,” and the book project provided her a new avenue when Anna asked that Kristin include one of her designs in the manuscript.
This cross-over sweater is that design, and was the beginning of some very interesting and innovative work. Her designs, seen mainly on Ravelry can be found in her Ravelry Store, and you’ll find out more about her under her Ravatar LadyRowena.
Some of Kristin’s most charming designs are those that initially were designed for her son, Gabriel. This carousel pullover is an adorable piece, worked in the invisible stranding technique…her preference for working multiple colors in both small patterns (to eliminate floats) and large (rather than intarsia). Several methods for this technique can be found on the blog site TECHknitting as well as in Kristin’s pattern.
Kristin is another of the knitters I met with allergy issues. Hers is to the lanolin in wool, and as a consequence, the items she knits for herself tend to be made from alpaca, linen and cotton. This is an important niche market, and we can always use more interesting patterns in those fibers. I’m a big fan of linen, and Kristin pointed out that she not only came from the area of Sweden (Jämtland) which traditionally produced linen thread and yarn, but that her local yarn store YlloTyll markets their own brand of linen yarn. The photos of their yarn do not do the colors justice, nor could I capture the gorgeous sheen. I made an exception for the purchase of this yarn and bought enough for a sweater rather than a single skein to swatch and review.
Elegant Ellen Shawl 
Compost-dyed yarns
But that’s not all! One day as she was cleaning up the kitchen and looking at the left-overs of a box of wine that had soured, Kristin became frustrated with the idea of so much food waste, and made the fateful decision to dunk a skein into the wine to see what would happen. She like the result, and started adjusting the pH of the wine to see how the colors would change. She had been bitten by the compost dyeing bug. So now, rather than throwing onion skins, carrot tops, beets and sour wine away, they go into the dye pot to produce the soft colors you see on the right above. While she is aware that not all of these yarns will be colorfast, that doesn’t concern her, particularly in her plans to use them for “kid knits” that likely will be worn hard and worn out — they won’t be destined for heirloom status. She doesn’t see a market for this kind of yarn either. It’s a fun sideline that makes her feel better about her own status as a consumer on the planet, and produces something interesting to work with.