Inside Patty Lyons’ Knitting Bag of Tricks: Meet the Illustrators!
The process of writing a book doesn’t stop when you finished the draft. I also want to make sure the illustrations in my new book, Patty Lyons’ Knitting Bag of Tricks, make the techniques easier to understand and add fun to it. If you are a visual learner, you get what I’m talking about!
Spoiler alert: the book features over 300 technical illustrations by the one and only Linda Schmidt, technical illustrator extraordinaire, which help you learn new skills with clear step-by-step instructions. I even had a friend cast on and test every trick just from the words and illustrations (no videos) to make sure we got our point across.
Plus the book also includes a dozen wonderful cartoons by fan-favorite illustrator Franklin Habit. His charming and witty illustrations will bring a smile to your face while you learn.
I had so much fun with the illustration process that I thought it would be interesting to share it with all of you.
Linda Schmidt—
Tech Illustrator, Graphic Designer, Author, and Knitwear Designer
Linda is not only an amazing technical illustrator but a knitter! For technical illustrations, I took photos of my hands for every step, and she cast on for each and every trick to make sure she understood every trick. (How can you not love her?!) There were times when my photos weren’t enough to get the idea across, so I filmed her a little video. Then, once she understood the trick, she often suggested adding an image that she thought was missing or tweaking the angle of something.
Stay tuned—Oct 19 at 2 pm ET, join me and Linda on my Youtube live. Click here to subscribe to my Youtube to get notifications when the live starts.
Before
My demo photo on one of the techniques in my book, SK2P (slip one, knit two together, pass the slipped stitch over), which is a tricky skill and not easy to understand in photos alone.
After
Linda’s illustration perfectly turn my thoughts into visual and make the step by step tutorial so easy to follow.
Before
My original photo demonstrating Western knitting.
After
Linda was great at using colors and arrows to demonstrate the movements and what the knitter should focus on.
Franklin Habit—
Illustrator, Designer, Teacher, and Author
When it came to working with Franklin, he was incredibly collaborative! Sometimes I knew exactly what I wanted to show, but often it would say “Franklin inspired.” Then he would send me his idea and I’d give my feedback and he’d tweak it. He was so good at turning my writing and metaphor to into visuals—he even knew what I was looking for better than I did myself. There was one time I screwed up in my brain and made a conceptual mistake. And it made the illustration difficult but we figured out in the end with Franklin’s help. It was truly a pleasure to work with him—we just really get each other. Interested to hear more fun stories form the two of us? Watch the replay of my YouTube Live with Franklin!
Franklin’s cartoon will resonate with knitters of all abilities and have you laughing while you learn.
I am so grateful that I got to work with such a stellar team to bring the vision of the book to life—AND I can’t wait to show you all the book! The book will be released on October 11th. I hope you like it as much as I do. If you haven’t pre-ordered it yet, you can get your AUTOGRAPHED COPY when you order directly from my store! Or purchase the Bag of Tricks Gift Bundle to save even more.
