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Debbie Bliss
This website is about knitwear designer Debbie Bliss and her yarns. It is not about promoting or discrediting the Debbie Bliss range of yarns it is just an honest assessment from someone who has used her yarns. I have been a knitter for over 40 years and have done what many experienced knitters do: choose a pattern and knit it up; choose a pattern and ‘adjust’ the pattern as it is knitted up; buy some lovely yarn at a knitting exhibition and design something unique with it. The best way to really get to know a yarn is, in fact, to design with it.
A few years ago I entered a competition that was published in Knitting Magazine (issue 66 August 2009). The brief entitled ‘The Colour of Summer’ was to design a garment for a woman to be worn during the autumn months while remembering the heat of the summer using the yarn Debbie Bliss Eco Cotton Aran. I was amazed that I won the competition with the design (pictured below) and my design and pattern was published in the magazine. This whole design process really gives you an insight into what a yarn can or cannot do - its unique qualities.
Debbie Bliss started her career at Rowan Yarns and is one of the most renowned knitwear designers in the world. For more than 30 years Debbie Bliss has produced knitting patterns for women, men, children and babies and also many designs for the home, compiling them in more than 35 books, 20 booklets and a twice yearly magazine.
After studying Fashion and Textiles at College, Debbie Bliss began selling her knitted flowers and plants to small speciality shops in the UK and Liberty in London and her hand knit designs to women’s magazines. Her knitwear designs are fashionably classic having been influenced by: a combination of stitch patterns, such as aran and fair isle, that have been passed from mother to daughter for centuries; and her love of 1930’s and 40’s hand knit patterns with their fantastic detailed shaping help to flatter the female form. Put together these influences with her other influences, namely multicultural London and the vibrant colours which can be found in the many window displays of sari shops and you have knitwear designs that can appeal to all ages.
Debbie Bliss often tours many countries including the UK, US and Canada giving lectures and doing workshops at major designer craft and knitting fairs and exhibitions. She began teaching and promoting her products many years ago in the US at a time when many British designers came to be of great interest not only to the US but all over the world. She has also worked for Baby Gap creating a few collections for them using her experience of knitwear design for babies.
As many women in the craft industry will recognise, it is hard to make a decent wage from designing hand knit patterns. Although Debbie Bliss was having success as a knitwear designer she was determined to try to make a good living from her craft. She had the idea to create her own line of yarn which she managed to get off the ground with a UK company, Designer Yarns. She has managed to produce over 25 high quality yarns including mixes of silk, merino wool and cotton in incredible colour palettes which she continually updates and evolves. This has enabled her to further her expertise by using her own yarns to design knitwear patterns and collections which have been published in her many books, booklets and magazine. Her most popular books are: Design It, Knit It: Babies; The Baby Knits Book; Baby Knits for Beginners; Design It, Knit It: Secrets from the Designer’s Studio; Debbie Bliss Knitting Workbook and The Knitter’s Year: 52 Make-in-a-Week Projects-Quick Gifts and Seasonal Knits.