053: Jen Lucas on Stunning Stitches and being an knitwear author

Send us Fan MailThis week, Felicia speaks with Jen Lucas, a knitwear designer who has been knitting since 2004 and designing since 2008. Her designs have been published in several knitting magazines, including Interweave Knits, Knitscene, and Love of Knitting. In fact, you can find all of Jen's nearly 200 knitwear designs on Ravelry. She is the author of two very popular books, called Sock Yarn Shawls and Sock Yarn Shawls II. And as well, she is releasing a NEW book, called Stunning Stitches, which will be available in May 2017. On transitioning into a full-time knitwear design career: "If you want it bad enough, you'll figure out a way to make it work, even over 5 years or 10 years... you can get there eventually, for sure." — Jen Lucas Felicia talks with Jen about her prolific knitwear design career and how she has been able to be so productive and successful with her work. Jen's attitude towards hard work, organization, and focus is so very inspiring and I hope you will join us for this conversation! In this episode, we talk about: 2:30 How the "Golden Girls" got Jen to start knitting 4:30 Jen (like Angela Tong) mentions how Stephanie Japel's class on learning to design shawls sparked her design career  5:45 How Jen made the leap from her "day job" to becoming a full-time knitwear designer 9:30 Talking about Jen's incredible rate of design productivity and her tips for productivity 11:45 Planning her design projects with her Hobonichi planner and Kanban board 16:15 Preventing creative burnout 20:00 Stunning Stitches Book 24:00 Jen's experience of authoring knitwear pattern books, after publishing five books successfully 25:45 Jen's view of the future of knitting   LET'S CONNECT https://sweetgeorgiayarns.com https://www.facebook.com/SweetGeorgiaYarns https://instagram.com/sweetgeorgia