Adina Klein

“I have crochet envy because these days I'm much more attracted to what crochet can do than to what knitting can do -- the structure, the organic quality. I love how you can use it for accessories. . . Knitting is divine but for someone who started out knitting, crochet is very refreshing.”

June 13, 2006, at the offices of Soho Publishing,
New York City

DORA: I always buy Vogue Knitting even though I'm not a knitter, just to look at the beautiful work. It inspires me to do my best as a designer. Bravo for doing such fantastic work, and on Knit.1 and Knit Simple too. What I am really curious about is your background and training, and how it prepared you to do this job.

ADINA: I have no real formal fashion training but I've always been a very good shopper. And, trust me, growing up in New York was a good training ground. I was a writing major at Oberlin and wanted to be a filmmaker. In fact wanted to be the female Woody Allen of the 1990s. As far as knitting, I've always knit. For years, I used to knit a sweater a week. I bought my yarn at The Yarn Company on the upper West side whose owner at the time was the wonderfully eccentric Melissa Mathay. I wrote a script called “Knit One, Purl Two” a teen romance about knitting. Melanie Falick, who had just written Knitting in America, the first coffee table knitting book, had a trunk show at the shop, and Melissa said, “You have to read this girl's script.” Melanie read it, loved it and sent me a little note of congratulations. For two years I tried to get this film made. This was in ‘95. I was briefly married while all this was going on, and to get away from my husband I started going to Stitches and other knitting events. I got a Ph.D. in knitting from going to all the classes, and all the books I've read! When Melanie joined Interweave Knits as editor in chief, I sent her a note congratulating her, and she called me and said “I'm desperate for help,” and I started working freelance for her and moonlighting in yarn shops. Then Lily Chin suggested I work for David Blumenthal at Lion Brand as his secretary. He interviewed me, but I told him I would make the worst secretary in the entire world, so he made me Creative Consultant, and later Design Director. I wrote a couple of books for Clarkson Potter, and began freelancing as a stylist for Trisha Malcolm at Vogue Knitting, soon becoming editor in chief of Knit.1 and one issue of Family Circle Easy Crochet.

DORA: Speaking of which, is that magazine done?

ADINA: No, but Family Circle has taken the title back. There are going to be one or two more issues with them.

DORA: How do you apply what you learned in film making to working on the magazines?

ADINA: My filmmaking experience has helped me frame things. What they teach in film school is that you have to tell the story in pictures. No matter what you do, you're telling a story, whether it's fiction or fashion or filmmaking. It's my job to take a fashion trend and distill it into a story. I study trend reports, and fashion websites, and I go to fashion shows and seminars. I reframe trends for my audience and send them out to the designers to translate into hand knitting. Say a bustier is the “must have” item of the season. I have to figure out how to use that item as an accessory in a story, and translate it into a knit or crochet item that people will want to make and wear. After I concept the story lines for an issue, and the sweaters are assigned to the designers, I work with art director Joe Vior, my “work husband” (though sometimes we're in divorce court) on how am I going to get the picture that's in my head on to the page. I come up with the fashion story first, and I know how many pages I have per issue, so I divide them up, and then I go through the design submissions and say this fits for this and this for that. For example, if I know I'm doing an English country thing in the winter issue I'll save the beautiful Fair Isle sweater for that.

DORA: I can really see that, when you open the magazine and there's a cohesion to it, even if it's subtextual.

ADINA: Joe has taught me that you have to think of the issue as a whole. You can have beautiful elaborate sets for one story, but you need to calm your eye down, so we might just use seamless paper and sunlight the next one. Once it's done I look at it with Trisha and Carla, the executive editor. I definitely have trends I want to focus on for each issue, but we have to ask, do we have enough accessories, enough easy projects? For fall, I had the idea to add VK Plus, because we get so many complaints about not accommodating the ample-size woman, so in every issue we are making sure to have some things that can be sized up. Not every garment will look good on the plus size woman.

DORA: Yes, I tend to make things that work on me and I'm pretty small, but I'm learning how to think about larger people too.

ADINA: You can't just go through the magazine and add extra sizes on everything. You have to think what would look good on a bigger woman. And it's different for each magazine. I have three titles I have to do this for, and they all have different personalities: Vogue Knitting, Knit Simple, and Knit.1.

DORA: How do you see the audiences for these three magazines?

ADINA: Vogue Knitting is the fashion magazine, the "premiere knitting magazineî. (Now that we've been listed as the Fiftieth Best Magazine, we can actually say that!) Next fall is our twenty-fifth anniversary. VK is the public face of knitting, in the sense that it's got to respond to fashion, but it also has to have the "knittyî sweaters, the very technical sweaters. It has an older audience, 40 is our median age, though a lot of younger people are coming to it, and we also have the 55 or older knitter who has been reading it forever. Since I've been on the staff there's been a change in the look of the magazine which gets some people very upset. I get my share of emails. Just because I put a lace sweater on a model wearing just her underpants, doesn't mean you can't wear it with khakis and oxfords. It's the upper end of the market, for the woman who is fashion-oriented. She knits for herself mostly, loves accessories and doesn't really care about men's sweaters. Personally, I don't like things that are trendy -- you never want to knit something that's going to be out of style, that screams 2006 -- but it must be stylish. Classic with a twist made with beautiful fibers. And price point is not as big an issue as beauty.

Knit Simple is more mainstream America. We're calling it a lifestyle magazine, much less focused on women's fashions, about forty percent fashion, a lot of home dec, a lot of family stuff, and simpler projects. It's for the "beyond the scarfî knitter, or the working woman who is not a hard core "knitty.î You love to knit and you want to make yourself a fun sweater. It's the sweaters that you live in.

Knit.1 is my baby. Each issue has a theme. We did a television issue, for example -- every story has a title like “Basic Cable” or "Masterpiece Theaterî or "After School Special.î The articles too: "Are You Experiencing Technical Difficulties?î It's really fun. Knit.1's been an opportunity to do something really creative, really out there. We just did the art issue, with "Free to be You and Meî and Frieda Kahlo. I work it from a sort of postmodern perspective. I start with the pun and work backwards.

Knit1 is often misperceived as a teen magazine, and I actually get hate mail saying I'm using sex to sell knitting. It's for the 18 - 35 market, really, it's the new face of knitting and there's a lot of crochet. (Speaking of crochet, it's also in Knit Simple and because crochet has gotten so extremely popular we now have something crocheted in every Vogue Knitting, too.) Knit.1 is for the edgy urban knitter. It definitely has a sense of humor and it's provocative and cheeky and fun.

DORA: I always wonder, when I look at all the published designs, and some of them are so challenging, how many of them get made. Do you have any idea about the numbers for your sweaters?

ADINA: I do and I don't. I do because either my advertiser will tell me "Oh my God, we got nine million orders for such-and-such,î or, God forbid, if there's a problem we'll know immediately what's being knit. Or I'll go out and see a project walking around everywhere. And there's the Internet. I'm neurotic -- I get my coffee and I'm in my pajamas and I read all the blogs, so I make sure to find out what people are making. There are certain things that we say, "Oh this is just inspiration,î and then I find out six months later at TNNA that the yarn company sold nine million balls of this yarn.

DORA: So what would be the numbers for something that gets made a lot?

ADINA: For example, that cover sweater last fall by Annie Modesitt using tons of Lorna's Laces yarn - within days Beth Casey of Lorna's had taken five hundred orders! And she's still taking orders for it. Annie has traveled the country several times teaching classes on that sweater. I think maybe 2000 people have knit it -- I don't know for sure. Because VK is international, you don't know what's going on in Australia and the UK. Demographically it varies too. The sweater that's huge in Minnesota isn't always the hot one in New York.

DORA: How do you get to work with the well-known designers? What's the process?

ADINA: To put the "vogueî in Vogue Knitting, since its inception, it has always had a Seventh Avenue story. It takes a very long time to cultivate these relationships. Our mainstays at the moment are Michael Kors, James Caviello and Anna Sui. Of course Michael Kors isn't sitting at home knitting these sweaters, so we have a relationship with the press office in the knitting department of his company. I go to style.com and look at the Michael Kors line. I print out of all the sweaters that look like they could be translated to hand knit and then we call them in. We choose one and he sells us the rights to publish the sweater and instructions. Michael Kors' company in particular is lovely because they provide a spec sheet and chart. But that's not the case with all designers, and Carla Scott -- she's the technical diva of knitting -- actually studies the sweater and specs it out. Then we have to find the right yarn. If we can't get the perfect matching color, we have to send the color to the designer and for approval, because it's their name on the sweater. When we actually shoot the garment, the design company will accessorize the whole thing and provide all the clothes. They're very strict about that, it has to be their look.

DORA: So those are the very big name designers in the fashion world. What about people like Nicky Epstein and Mari Lynn Patrick, the stars of published patterns -- they don't do submissions like everyone else, do they?

ADINA: Mari Lynn doesn't swatch, but she sends me folders and folders of ideas with sketches or magazine tear sheets for inspiration. Other designers like Shirley Paden will send her line for the season. Nicky does that to an extent too - she has her designs and you can pick from them. Vlad and Michelle Rose do the same thing. They send all their sketches and swatches and we go through them, matching them with the story lines I've chosen for the issue.

DORA: What would you suggest for a relatively unknown designer, how can we make ourselves stand out from the crowd?

ADINA: Submit! Do a great swatch and a beautiful sketch. Especially when I don't know who you are, seeing pictures of finished work is good. With people we don't know, we need a schematic with measurements -- otherwise how do we know this is going to come out like the sketch? Designs are expensive and I don't have the luxury of working with untested designers. I've heard on the internet that I'm the Simon Cowell of knitting, because I send it back if I don't like it. And with people who I've known for years, it's much easier for me to say, "C'mon honey, fix that neckline.î And they are happy because it's more satisfying to work as hard as you can and get a beautiful photograph. To see the end product look great -- that's thrilling for the designer.

DORA: I wanted to ask about something you said earlier, about sending a clip from a magazine. That's acceptable?

ADINA: It's not ethical to copy a design from a magazine, but you can show something as the inspiration, along with a swatch so I know you know what you're thinking. And the first time we hire you, do a fabulous job, don't call me every ten minutes, and get it in on time. We are so thrilled to find new people that we can work with and trust. You see the same names over and over again because we've had disasters. You know how they say, well you can't see the back of that sweater in the photograph because there's something wrong. Since I came to this job from styling and I'm at all the photo shoots, I keep all the pins in. Like if I pin the neck, when Carla is writing the pattern a month later, we go through each thing, and I'll say, it was humongous but we pinned it to be smaller, and she writes the pattern to my pinning. So even if it there was a fit issue with the sweater, it will come out right when you make it.

DORA: That's so smart, you help people avoid disappointments. Now, of course, I have to ask the inevitable question: how do you see knitting vs crochet, or knitting and crochet. We in the crochet community are wondering how long the current trend is going to last.

ADINA: Personally I think they're both going to last. The fact that when they listed Vogue Knitting as the fiftieth of the top fifty magazines, the other magazines were titles likeHarper's Bazaar, Esquire, and Mother Jones. Yes, it's a niche market, but knitting is so important that now it's getting recognized. This issue of W magazine with Kate Bosworth on the cover has the most beautiful spread, ten pages of knits -- it's not going away. And I frankly have crochet envy because these days I'm much more drawn to what crochet can do than to what knitting can do. I'm not very good at it -- I'm left handed so I have a hard time doing it. Knitting is divine but for someone who started out knitting, crochet is very refreshing and is certainly showing up more and more in fashion. I don't know why it was stigmatized for so long.

DORA: We always hear about how there's been an association between economic class and a preference for knitting or crochet -- with the upscale folk being the knitters and buying their yarns at local shops, the less wealthy more into crochet and shopping at chain stores. What's your take on this?

ADINA: There are two groups in the yarn industry, the "craftsî people who sell largely to the chains, and they have a bigger voice, and the boutique yarn industry. Pound for pound, the crafts people are selling much more yarn-- sixty percent of that market is crochet and traditionally they make mostly afghans. That has changed somewhat with the advent of novelties and lower-prices luxury yarns.

I have a lot of theories about the new knitter. How people learn now is through blogs, the internet, classes, and books. It's not like how I learned from my Aunt Shirley. These youngin's don't have the stigma about crochet because they're a new audience. Now it's all about being crafty: the DYI Crafty Girl books have helped, the combination of knitting and crochet and sewing and embellishing. And lucky for us that has happened in fashion world at the same time which helps crochet quite a bit.

DORA: How do you see the internet changing things?

ADINA: The good thing about the internet is that it's creating a thriving subculture. For a while I was being trashed on a certain I-will-not-say-which blog which is very destructive. Some people don't take the time to write nice things but they take the time to write a mean thing. Even if you get twenty compliments you're going to remember the nasty thing. For the most part, though, what's going on with the internet is really exciting. Magazine publishing is having a hard time competing and adjusting. We're reluctant to publish free patterns, because we are big proponents of copyright issues. We believe that patterns - not just the picture, but the way the directions are written, that's all part of copyright. A lot of yarn companies give patterns away for free, and in some ways it is what's driving sales at the stores, because you can see this Berroco coat on the web and you need to get the Berroco yarn. But another thing the internet is doing is undermining the shops, the community of the shops. I was a "shop girl,î and always see it from that point of view. The yarn shop is your public grandmother. To me it's all about this community -- smart creative women teaching generations of people. When everyone's surfing the internet to find the cheapest ball of yarn, the shops suffer the most and without them, life will go on, but it's not the same. There is a cyber community and that's important too, but I think the yarn shop has to be the church of knitting -- or the synagogue in my case, and crochet too. As far as I'm concerned, the dollar more that it costs per ball at the shop, you're buying a tradition, skilled labor, a craft -- that's what you're paying for, save your money elsewhere.

DORA: Amen! Now I am very curious to know, who are some of the up- and-coming designers you're interested in?

ADINA: There's a New York designer I love named Sherri Moore. I just got a sweater by a Russian woman from Long Island named Galina Carrol - she's part of that Russian knitting community who work for the Seventh Avenue designers, and now she wants to be recognized in her own name. Another one I love is name Kate Williams. In the first issue of Knit.1 we published an article about getting a degree in knitting, and she had won the Pratt Institute design prize. Now she designs for me all the time. In the last issue, we did a story called "Go for Baroqueî and she designed an outrageous knitted chandelier with knitted candles. She also knit an argyle strapless dress and a teenage girl sent me a note saying it was her prom dress! There are a lot of really creative people out there.

DORA: I see that too, so many cool designs showing up everywhere! Who else to you suggest I interview for Crochet Insider?

I have so much respect for Margery Winter from Berroco who has been in this industry forever and knows fashion and yarn. And Nora Gaughan -- she's wonderful, too. Mari Lynn Patrick has amazing experience, a real long-term perspective. Carla Scott who works with me is the best. Vlad. Lily Chin. Then there are the young ones, people who are putting their necks out there, like Vicki Howell, who does the Knitty Gritty show. It's always interesting to talk to shop owners. And people like Iris Schrier and Beth Casey and Gina and Austin Wilde who are doing really interesting things with yarn. Linda Cyr out of Ohio is really fun -- she does great accessories. And, of course, Teva Durham. Sasha Kagan from Wales who has been designing exquisite knitwear for years is doing a crochet book with us next year. Seems like everyone has a crochet book now which is great for crochet. Honestly, if I had a month, I would work my way through a crochet book. I'd much rather create something like what you have on, I like the way it feels against the body. There's a children's book that my mother used to read, George and Martha, they were married and Martha used to make pea soup every day, but George didn't really like to eat it, he poured it into his slippers. I feel that way about knitting-- I love to do it but the sweaters are heavy. Crochet is thinner if you work on the thin yarn.

DORA: It's funny to hear you say that, because I always hear the opposite, especially from knitters. Knitters will also say you can't shape as well with crochet, but I think you just have to shape a different way, and not necessarily using knitting models.

ADINA: You have to use the idea of fabric pieces more in crochet.

DORA: That's one way, but you can also shape in different ways, you can put your dart right where it's needed, not on the side, or you can make your shells bigger to create more fabric.

ADINA: Right, so it's more internally shaped than on the side.

DORA: Still, I'd like to see more high fashion crochet being published. I started out making very complex fitted garments for myself, and my first published designs were those garments, which Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss bought for their books. But since then I've been often advised to keep it simpler.

ADINA: They are calling this couture crochet, but there is a problem with it and it has to do with space. Pages are expensive. If I have a photo and an expert level knitting pattern, it takes a page and half but in crochet it's going to be four pages and I don't have the room.

Vogue Knitting has the highest standard of pattern writing, but when it comes to crochet it's scary because we're not as experienced with it. As desperate as the industry is for very good pattern writers for knitting, there are even fewer for crochet and before I accept it I say, "Can we do this?î That's changing now that we're doing Crochet Today. Another person you should talk to is Brett Bara, the editor of Crochet Today.

In terms of the industry as a whole, look at Martha Stewart - she takes a piece of cardboard and a potato stamp and wallpapers her living room. Or with this DYI Culture, first it was a napkin and now it's a canopy for a bed -- people expect perfection in a very short amount of time. The way I learned to knit, if I knew I wasn't going to see my Aunt Shirley for a month, I either fixed it myself, or I'd make ten ugly things, but eventually I'd figure it out. Today a lot of people don't have the patience ñ they want instant results. If they write an email because they're having trouble on a pattern they want to know why within hours. We've tripled our technical department just in knitting. When I teach knitting, I say you have to do it for twenty minutes every day for a week. Then you can stop. If you get stuck in the beginning of learning something and there's no one to help you and you put it down for a month, you won't remember the beginning.

DORA: That's true about repetition. Doing crochet daily -- I know it's meant a whole lot to me on the mental level, the meditative quality. Like they say knitting is the new yoga, and for me that's true of crochet. It seems like something for the industry to keep talking about, because people really need this.

ADINA: Melanie Falick and I talked about this along time ago. Yoga -- Madonna was doing it and it was talked about, and then you could take classes everywhere, at places with Indian names. Now it's in every gym and the big trainers are doing yoga stretches - no one talks about it anymore. No one talks about sushi any more but someone told me they're doing sushi trays at Walmart now. It's the same with knitting and crochet -- they are not a fad any more, they're part of the culture, and that's a good thing.

DORA: And yet on various places on the internet, they're talking about crafting diminishing. Like scrapbooking was really big, now it's going down, quilting was huge, now not so much...

ADINA: I think they're all still there, there's just less hype. That's partly due to the internet -- people are creating their own subcultures. The negativity is coming from people who need to make money and maybe their numbers are not as good. For yarn, the numbers may not be as explosive as they were last year, but they are still up from three years ago by quite a bit, and that's a lot of people buying yarn. It's not going to plummet. People are doing it, but they're on the internet learning how to make things and it's taking longer to finish them. They're still doing it but not buying as much yarn.

DORA: Well that's certainly true in my case, I bought so much yarn a couple of years ago that my apartment is completely filled, and I'm not allowing another purchase until I work my way through what I've got.

This has been an amazing interview, Adina, I learned so much, but I don't want to wear out my welcome. Maybe I'll come back another time, I'm sure we could talk for hours.

ADINA: Definitely!