Interview and Giveaway with Vicky Chan

Meet Vicky Chan

Vicky Chan is a talented knitting and crochet designer whom I have long admired for her sophisticated garment designs. Though she has only been designing for two years, Vicky has already been presented with prestigious awards.

For example, she placed third in the Pierrot Yarns Contest of Spring 2015 for her continuous motif shrug Clair. She was also the recipient of two 2015 Flaming Hook of Justice Awards. Jordan, a lacy pineapple top, was named the Best Tank/Sleeveless Top Design. Cynthia, a lacy shorts design, was named the Best Shorts/Pants design. My personal favorite of Vicky’s designs is Angela, which is a beautiful seamless oversized cardigan.

You can check out all of Vicky’s patterns, which include both charted and written instructions, on her Ravelry designer page here.

From top to bottom: Clair, Jordan, Cynthia

The Interview

Q. What are your favorite crochet tools to use?

A. I love my good old Areo crochet hooks that I have kept for many years. My other favorite tool is my Clover locking stitch markers (I actually wrote about it on my blog). Sometimes I may also use my beautiful Japanese bowl as a yarn bowl (it’s featured in the photo here on my blog).

Q. What inspired you to become a crochet designer, and what were your toughest struggles along the way?

A. I have always enjoyed arts and crafts since I was a kid. I’m glad that Ravelry has made it possible for me to become an independent designer and explore my artistic creativity. Of course, my husband’s moral support and encouragement have also played an important part, even though he cannot tell the difference between crocheting and knitting. Couple of my toughest struggles are:

• writing pattern instructions to accommodate different crochet skill levels, text and chart readers while keeping the number of pattern pages down.
• providing multiple sizes when the crochet stitch patterns are often quite challenging to size up/down.

Q. Which of your designs do you or recipients of your work wear the most?

A. “Irene”, “Clair”, “Jordan” and “Julia” are worn by me the most.

Q. What one piece of advice would you give someone creating a crochet or knit garment for the first time?

A. My advice is to take the time to make a swatch, even though it’s very tempting to dive in and make the garment right away. The swatch can help you obtain the correct gauge and is ultimately less time consuming to frog.

Giveaway

Be sure to check out Vicky’s blog, her Facebook page, and her Pinterest!

Vicky has kindly offered to sponsor a giveaway of one of her designs! To enter, comment on this blog post and tell Vicky which of her designs is your favorite. Then, click here to submit. The giveaway ended on August 27, 2015 at 12:00 AM PST.