Kay Hopkins of Knit for the Soul is running a Wildfire KAL to raise money for the relief people and animals displaced by the recent wildfires. The two patterns are the Forest Mosaic Cowl and the Forest Mosaic Shawl
Are all the fires out now?
No, they are still burning in a more controlled fashion in the PNW at least but over 3.7 million acres have burned on the West Coast.
How have the fires changed life in your area?
People stopped what they were doing to help others….people out in the more rural areas and in small towns anyway. The area where I grew up was evacuated and there has never been a concern about forest fires there so that’s now become a reality. The forests used to be managed and that stopped about 20-30 years ago due to environmental concerns. Now the burning is a cycle that will have to be endured unless the forestry management includes cleaning up the smaller trees and underbrush. It will be interesting to see if the forest practices are revisited in the future given the devastation and the danger to some pretty heavily civilized areas.
What was it like to have Corona Virus concerns on top of a major fire?
The wildfires were much more devastating than Covid-19 for which the hospitalization and death rates have been extremely low in Oregon.
Tell me about the bulldozer photo?
That’s my youngest brother who is not a firefighter but was working through the night to help save a small town. There were a lot of construction folks and farmers doing the same thing. The photo was taken by someone on an excavator behind him. When the guy behind saw the “flames dancing on the blade of the dozer” he grabbed his phone and snapped a picture of it. Of course, I kind of freaked when I saw it in the news because I wondered if they’d get the heck out in time if they needed to….none of those guys are the kind of people who give up easily. Here’s a link to a story about that photo if you’d like to read it: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/09/behind-the-firelines-the-race-to-save-scotts-mills.html
So many of your designs are named for local geography, have the fires changed your ideas for knitting designs too?
No, but it’s interesting how many of the places I’ve named designs after have been impacted by the fires…. I do have a sweater design that I’d named Santiam Canyon because that’s where I grew up and it just happened to be where one of the big fires was.
I keep seeing lovely mosaic work in gradient sets from you, and thinking she must be finished exploring those ideas, and you keep coming out with new ones without them looking all the same. How are you doing that?
I’m so glad that you think so! There are so many ideas to work with and sometimes I’m afraid that they do look too similar but it’s so fun to create new ones!
I love the miter in the Forest Mosaic Cowl, did you figure out the placement with a mirror?
Lol, no that’s just the function of a stitch pattern and “mirroring” the design using my charting software. Sometimes it takes a little adjustment to make it look the way I want it to but it can mostly be done on the st chart and then proved out in a swatch.
I see there is a mosaic tutorial video, what are the common questions you see from knitters about mosaic?
Most of the questions arise when people take the complexity from stranded colorwork into their approach for mosaic colorwork. Mosaic is so much more simple than that…for the knitter anyway…I sometimes think that the hard work is in the colorwork design and then knitters get to use just one color per row and alternate colors every 2 rows. If the stitch on the color chart is not for the color of yarn in your hand for that row, then you slip the stitch. It’s just that easy!
What do you love most about this technique?
I love the simplicity of it and the texture that is achievable by simply using garter stitch. There’s also an optical illusion aspect to it that fascinates me.
What are the major advantages for knitters participating in the WILDFIRE KAL?
There’s the opportunity to get help with mosaic if it’s not a skill that they already have but most of all, it’s knowing that we are helping people who’ve had devastating losses from the fires. There are even codes set up so that knitters can direct the donation portion of their purchases to one of the 6 charities listed who are providing Wildfire Relief.
Oregon Wildfire Relief – Salvation Army Use code: OWR
Washington Wildfire Relief – Salvation Army Use code: WWR
California Wildfire Relief – Salvation Army Use code: CWR
American Red Cross – with KGWmediagroup Use code: ARC
United Way of the PNW – with KOIN tv Use code: UW
North Valley Animal Disaster Group Use code: NVA
It’s so cool that you’ve set up a code to send the knitters money to the charity of their choice!
Here they are again if anyone wants to donate directly. Yes, thank you! The same codes work on my website too. https://www.knitforthesoul.com/https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/forest-mosaic-shawl
What do you love about running KALs?
I really enjoy the enthusiasm and how people like to help and encourage each other.
Sweet Georgia Yarns have paired up some yarn suggestions for these projects too.