All Dressed Up: Kelgan al'Moranwin
Author: Tyla al'Mere
This month I interviewed Kelgan al’Moranwin, the newest Aes Sedai of the White Ajah. He is member of the (unfortunately) rarer sex amongst us knitters and crocheters so I am quite excited to share this interview with you.
Kelgan Sedai is responsible for the beautiful stoles for Vivianna L'antreau (former Amyrlin), Dralyn Montsier and Leora Oldessroth (former Keepers of Chronicles), and Lireina Dormerus t'al`Bearach (current Keeper of Chronicles).
Vivianna L'antreau modelling her Stole:
Leora Oldessroth and Dralyn Montsier modelling their Keeper Stoles:
Lireina Dormerus t'al`Bearach modelling her Keeper Stole:
Let's start with a little background. Can you tell me a little about who you are and what you do in the big, wide, real world?
In the real world, I'm a PhD philosophy student who's about to start teaching and is VERY excited about it. I'm also a political junkie (there's a reason I'm in the Current Events forum so much), and when I'm not in school, I work as an editor for a medical consulting firm. I'm also, when I have the time, an avid reader and gamer - I'm a fan of just about anything in the fantasy genre in books (so long as it's well-done), but I find I prefer sci-fi in non-written media, including spoken word, tv/movies, and games.
It is wonderful to meet a male crafter! What made you start knitting / crocheting in the first place?
I used to do a LOT of cross stitch. One Thanksgiving, I had a project that was driving me bonkers, and I wanted to craft but needed a break from that thing. So my aunt, who happened to have a spare pair of needles and a spare skein of yarn with her, taught me how to knit a fairly simple scarf.
That first pattern is still something I make a lot of, actually; it's a simple scarf that I can work on while I read (and I do a lot of that in my line of work) to occupy my hands, and when they're done they're donated to the Seaman's Church Institute for their Christmas at Sea program. It's a fantastic charity that sends out knit goods as gifts to mariners who can't be home for Christmas.
How long have you been knitting / crocheting for?
That was Thanksgiving '05, so I've been knitting for going on ten years now. Crocheting I picked up along the way somewhere; I couldn't point you to any particular place when I first picked up a hook, but I got my grounding in notation and technique in a class that Narysse Sedai taught about three years ago.
You also design your own patterns. What made you start designing?
A few different things, really. First, I had difficulty finding things other people had designed that I actually wanted to knit. It was information overload in some senses - the sheer variety and volume of patterns published, particularly since Ravelry came online, is staggering. I couldn't devote the time to sorting through all that and couldn't dodge the nagging suspicion that I was settling for second best when I finally did decide on something - that there might be something out there I liked more.
Second, I'm cheap. I dislike paying someone else for something I could do myself and probably have fun with, especially as a hobby. If it didn't take a million years and require more space than I have, I'd probably spin my own yarn, too, but I can't produce the same quality or quantity as what my LYS (Local Yarn Store) can lay hands on, so I'm happy to buy that. Ditto all my other materials. But pattern design is accessible and fun, so I do that part myself most of the time. I'm also in a better financial situation now than I used to be, so I'll occasionally spend the money on a pattern that I really want to knit.
Third, I could rarely find attractive garments designed for men that I had any confidence would actually fit me. This makes a certain level of sense, given the total domination of the field by women, but it's always been a bit frustrating. I've found that most patterns written for men are written by women who are making something for their husband or boyfriend and who tailored the pattern to fit his body. Any generalization or sizing is an afterthought and not usually well done. There's a totally understandable paucity of understanding on the part of female designers (and a fair few male designers, for that matter) about how men's bodies vary from one another that has a significant and deleterious impact on the fit of finished products for other men. So if I'm wearing it and it's not a scarf or cap, my general policy is to design it myself.
Where do you draw your inspiration from?
I have never been able to have just one thing going, so that's a long list:
- new Amyrlin stole for Mother Rhed
- A shawl for me - this one's insane (seriously, 20+ skeins worth of intarsia most of it) but it's on hold because the dominant yarn is presently back-ordered to China and everyone I can find in the US is out of stock.
- A new knitting bag for me - I have a couple fold-up baskets similar to this that I inherited from Naomi Sedai's grandmother, but one of them is coming apart at the seams at this point and I need a third anyway. So I adapted this pattern for the exterior and will probably line it in satin to prevent notions from sliding out through the crochet. I'm also contemplating a removable frame so it can be readily converted to a tote and more easily stored. I'm actually rather excited about this project :D
- Socks for Naomi Sedai
- A blanket-pillow-thing for me - my school office is in our basement, and being in Massachusetts, it gets wicked cold down there in winter time, right when I need to be spending the most time down there. I like the cold, but there are limits. It'll have a nice little pouch for my feet and when not in use, the whole thing will fold up into the pouch to become a throw pillow.
- A pair of pajama pants I've had on the needles for what seems like a life-age of the earth. They're all blocked and sewn up; now I just need to get the drawstring made and run through and get pockets taken care of (though I may just end up sewing up those holes). If I were to do this again, I'd probably just make them about 20% larger and skip the blocking - they're not long enough anyway (my fault - I got impatient and thought I could block them out longer than turned out to be the case) and the pockets look like they'll pull right open. But they're damn comfy :D
- A pair of long johns, except done as shorts. This is actually the second iteration of this pattern I've done - the main fabric is a 2x1 rib, and it turns out that when that's what you're making them out of, it's actually very difficult to get the fly to stay shut. :look The second iteration omits the fly.
- A couple scarves of the kind I first made.
- Several projects that are in the woodshed for various reasons
- Design work on a couple other things I'm excited about - you'll see them in Hand Crafts when the time is right :D
Do you have any advice for new knitters and crocheters?
The most important advice I can think to give is that this is supposed to be fun. There's a learning curve, and mastering that can be frustrating, but when you've got the basics down, if you're not having fun, it's OK to put down that project and do something else.
The second most important piece of advice I have is that there's not just one right way to knit (or crochet). I've heard horror stories of LYS attendants and helpers who told people that they were knitting the "wrong" way because the attendant knit British (or continental, as the case may be) and was convinced that that was really the only "right" way to do it or because the knitter was using yarn of gauge/color/fiber content that the attendant or helper would never have used for a given project. There are several different ways to a great finished product, and what's important is that you're doing something you're comfortable with in a way that leads to the finished product you want to have - others' opinions be damned. Taking sound advice from advanced knitters on how to get there is a good idea, but don't let others push you into techniques or choices in construction or materials that you don't want to use. Keep an open mind, but remember that the decision is yours at the end of the day, and that's how it should be.
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Thank you to Kelgan Sedai for taking the time to talk with me. If you haven't seen his work in person, you are missing out because it is gorgeous!
