My name is Nicole and I am the creator behind Nicole Thomas Knits. As you may have read on my bio page, I am a knitwear designer, technical editor, and knitting instructor. Knitting - and everything that goes along with it - is my one true love (shhh... don't tell my husband, although I suspect he already knows).
But how did I get here?
I’ve always considered myself a creative person - I always loved arts and crafts, drawing, and creating things in my imagination. I am also a great believer that everyone has creativity within them and that there is an element of creativity in all we do, whether it’s designing, pattern testing, web development or accounting. Although I do a little sewing, painting and paper crafting, my main creative outlet is knitting. I first learned to knit when I was about 8 years old but struggled to grasp patterns and knitting lingo for the longest time. When I was 28, I came back to knitting and with the help of YouTube and social media, it finally clicked for me! It’s been six years and I’ve not stopped knitting since! I dappled in selling finished knitwear at first but similar to others I’ve seen, it became a struggle to meet the expectations of market-goers both in terms of what items they were looking for and pricing my items. I also didn’t want to spend all summer making a bunch of hats to prepare for fall markets.
After almost three years, I decided to put the maker focused business to rest and spent some time reconnecting with my love. Last year, I began learning about and exploring knitting tech editing and designing.
In early 2019, I left my corporate job last year to pursue entrepreneurship in the yoga and wellness field but in the back of my mind, I still felt drawn to my creative work. When COVID hit this spring and I lost my yoga teaching gig, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the direction of my business and if I wanted to continue trying to pursue it. A lot of teachers seamlessly shifted to teaching online but it feel like the right fit for me. In the end, I kept coming back to my knitting and designing. And this is where I am now, focusing my entrepreneurial and creative energy on bringing my design ideas to life and helping other designers do so too through tech editing and test knitting. I am also passionate about teaching new knitters and have plans for knitting workshops in the near future.
My intention for this blog is to share knitting tips and resources, as well as my personal reflections as I navigate along this road of knitwear design. Thanks for reading and joining me on this journey!
Until next time, happy knitting.
Nicole
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