Because her lovely sweater won a Knitting Daily Readers’ Choice Award!

It is called the Cable-Down Raglan, and was originally published in IK Spring 2007, but now it is Free, along with the other four winners, in an e-book available till May 14th. Thank you, Knitting Daily!
Stefanie is a knitting designer of great fame, and a personal favorite. Think the fairly iconic Orangina, from her site glampyreknits, or the startling, impressively original Forecast from Knitty, or perhaps the charming book Fitted Knits. When I first found her designs on the internet, I thought, now here’s the real thing. She is a master of the top-down raglan and of the use of texture and stitch patterns for shaping and visual interest.
And I actually was lucky enough to get to pepper her with questions, thus:
~words of Stefanie in bold~
Congratulations on this sweater!
Thank you for your congratulations! I love this sweater and I think it’s my favorite of my designs, but I’m so surprised to find myself in the top 5 designers of IK’s first 10 years! I can’t express what an honor this is for me. This was my first design in IK, and I feel honored just to be included in the magazine!
Well, it’s so deserved. It’s so striking, very original, and I love the way the cables organically mimic the body’s lines.
I really appreciate that a lot of your designs and their embellishments do this–sometimes it’s hard to think of shapes that aren’t just plain-geometrical-abstract, but you seem to consistently come up with things that manage to do this very elegantly. Was there any new or specific inspiration for this one?
I designed this sweater after just finishing Fitted Knits, so I had shaping-by-using-a-different-stitch-pattern on the brain. I had used ribbing at the waist as shaping in several patterns in the book, and cables are just more elaborate ribbing, so it seemed logical to try them as a shaping element. So, pretty much a progression of what I had started with the book.
(Here’s a picture of Stefanie in the Boatneck Bluebell Sweater from said book.)

Similarly, you’re so good at finding colors and silhouettes that have a visual Pop–where do you like to look to be inspired?
I’m just flashy. I love color and I love to play with fit and shape. I have a hard time figuring out exactly what it is that inspires me. If could put my finger on that…I’d just do whatever the inspiring thing is all the time.
Well, I hear that. Is there any sort of art you prefer, or place you walk to first in a strange museum?
The first place I like to go in the museum is the gift shop. I go right to the glass counter where they keep all of the jewelry and little objects that the local artists have made and are selling. Then I go to the textile exhibits, and then to the paintings. I like to start with the most modern paintings and work my way back in time.
I’m also so appreciative of the fashionable-but-not-trendy look your sweaters have–are there any particular designers you like?
I really like Marc Jacobs, but I haven’t followed any new designers in a while… this is a hard one for me.
Yeah, I have to admit the only reason I would ask at all is that I’m a big Project Runway and Tim Gunn fan; otherwise I probably would have continued to have little interest or knowledge in the actual world/business of modern fashion.
I LOVE Project Runway!
Sweet. Any particular likes? (I liked Jeffrey from S03, although I could never get my sister to admit that yellow plaid couture dress was cool.)
OK, I really liked Jeffrey, too. I forgot his real name, we just called him “Neck Tattoo” around our house. He really made the most beautiful-trashy clothes. I also was so impressed with the winner of the first season, taking the time to include knits in his runway show! That was amazing to see.
Yeah, I could have sworn I even saw a mitered square.
By the way, how on earth did you learn to pose in your pictures so well?
We take SO many at a time, then choose the ones that look the best. My husband is an artist, so he has an eye for these things.
(Readers, here is one of my favorites, Camellia. )

You were early in blogging, early in designs on the internet. How does it feel, looking back over the internet-knitting transformation/explosion/kablooie that now exists?
The resources we have online now are so incredible. I can find not only the definition of any knitting technique, but probably find a video of someone demonstrating it! It’s really amazing. But what’s more amazing is the number of people who still believe that if something exists only on the internet, it isn’t real.
Quite.
What is your PhD in specifically, again?
Earth and Planetary Science.
Rock. I feel as though good old Virginia Woolf, among others, would be proud of your ability to have both a science career, more traditionally manly, and a clothes-designing career, more traditionally womanly. I was wondering about how you think about your knitting, how it relates to your life as a woman, how you feel it balances (or doesn’t) with the scientific side.
Knitting gives me a very definite feeling of connection with the women who came before me. Knitting is something that has been done in my family for generations, and my maternal grandmother knit almost as obsessively as I knit myself. I don’t really have philosophy of knitting. Or if I do, I haven’t really worked it out to the point that it’s clear to me as a definable thing. I like to just cast on and see what the yarn wants to be. Many of my top-down sweaters have a relatively plain yoke, and then the ‘action’ happens on the sleeves and body, after I’ve worked with the yarn a little bit. I think knitting has been a good balance to the science. I mainly studied in the laboratory, so there was a lot of , “what happens if I do *this?* Or mix this with *that,*” etc., and I do the same in my knitting.
Well, way to combine intuition and the scientific method. Take that, Mssrs. Descartes et Bacon.
I really think that the processes are similar…designing experiments and designing garments. Figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Taking careful notes so that future experimenters can reproduce the same result…
Do you have a favorite scientist of old? (I can’t decide between Newton and Huygens.)
When I was an undergraduate, I took a Women in Science class and studied Florence Bascom. She was the first woman to earn a PhD in Geology from Johns Hopkins University. She was into mineralogy and petrology. And later, just by weird coincidence, I ended up at Johns Hopkins studying similar stuff. SO I feel a special connection with her. But, yes, without Newton, we’d never know why the apple falls!

(A nice neckline on Florence Bascom, there.)
I’m glad to hear about the Mission Falls DK and SWTC upcoming patterns I read about. And that cover photo of Glam Knits on Amazon looks awesome, can’t wait to see the whole thing.

Er, any more hints or pictures?
The garments have just gone into photography, so I don’t even get a preview yet! As soon as I can leak a little something, I will, though!
Brilliant. What’s its general aesthetic like, and the types of garments? I’m really pleased to see a dress on the cover; it looks very wearable. There aren’t that many dress patterns out there, either!
There are several tunic-dresses in the book. Most of the garments are knit top-down, but there ARE some with set-in sleeves, one is knit in one piece from the back hem to the front and all of the details are picked up and knit on. I’ve got one skirt, a couple of handbags, a lacy scarf, and the camel tweed sweater that I wore in my author photo for the first book. A couple of coats… I think it’s a good mix of quick-knit and more labor-intensive knits.
Ha ha, set-in sleeves. (The top-down raglan makes shoulder seams quite unnecessary.) Well, that sounds really exciting.
Thank you so much for talking to me!
You’re welcome! Thank you!
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So, go look at the other winning designers on the KD Blog tour, gentle readers;
Monday, April 14: Sandi Wiseheart interview on Smoking Hot Needles
Tuesday, April 15: Norah Gaughan interview on Lolly Knitting Around
Wednesday, April 16: Kate Gilbert interview on Moth Heaven
Friday, April 18: Evelyn Clark interview on The Panopticon
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