Mina Philipp is the one-woman force behind Knitting Expat Designs. We are featuring her cabled Amortentia Hat as the knit pattern for our Winter 2022 Giving Project.

We recently caught up with Mina and asked her a few questions.

How did Knitting Expat Designs get its name?

I was born and raised in London and will probably always consider the UK to be home for me. When I learned to knit, we lived in Dubai, and some time after that we moved to Bahrain, and that’s really where my podcast and designing started. So at the time I was a knitter and an expat and so Knitting Expat was the obvious name to choose. After our time in Bahrain came to an end, we moved to New York for a year before we came back to the UK. We’ve been back in the UK for about 4 years now!

How did you get started as a designer?

I just loved the maths behind it and enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how a pattern worked / was structured. Although I started small, with simple shapes and items that didn't need a lot of concern with regard to fit, such as shawls and cowls, as my confidence grew I expanded to hats and socks (where fit is more important). After a couple of years I got more confident and experienced as a knitter and took the plunge and started designing garments.

On your Ravelry profile you mention that inclusivity is important to you, both in sizing and pricing. How do those values inform your design work?

It is very important to me and I've seen a shift in my designs and how I write my patterns over the years as a result of having this as my focus. I try where possible to provide a recipe for a pattern rather than strict rules on what you need to do and when. This allows the knitter to more easily modify a design to suit them. Another thing that really is important to me is to ensure knitters are getting the most out of their yarns. I dislike having lots of leftovers after a project myself so I try to structure my patterns to allow the knitter to use up as much of the yarn they are using for the pattern. Additionally, again where possible, I've been making my designs adaptable to multiple gauges and that then opens up the possibility to use a variety of yarn weights as well. All of these things really factor into my design process and I'm often trying to find ways to make my designs as easy to modify as possible.

Please tell us about your book, Cowls: A Colourwork Sourcebook & Patterns, Inspired by Persia.

This book was such a passion project for me. I loved creating it and the ideas that went into this book were really a culmination of a few things that I am really passionate about. Firstly, I love the idea of a pattern being made in any gauge (see my answer to the previous question) and that, combined with the two main methods included in the book for constructing a cowl, gives you multiple options for creating some wonderful projects. The book also includes 10 different colourwork motifs which you can use interchangeably with any of the cowl styles as well, which really gives you infinite possibilities. If you are also not super keen on having to do the maths (although it is very simple) and just want to follow a written pattern, those are also included in the book for all of the sample cowls shown. Secondly, and this is possibly the one thing that I've been dreaming about doing in some way with my knitting for a long time: being able to mix my Iranian heritage with my knitting. Iran doesn't have such a history with knitting that other places have, but it does have a rich history in weaving. Persian Rugs in particular are known worldwide as being some of the best there are, and I wanted to take inspiration from some of the popular motifs used in these rugs for the colourwork designs in my book.

You’ve launched several sock clubs over the years, the most recent being Around The World In 8 Socks. What is a sock club and how does it work? What sparked the idea for the Around the World theme?

So a sock club essentially is a collection of patterns. But instead of accessing all the patterns at the same time when you purchase a collection, with a club each month you get a new pattern updated in the collection. So each month's design is a surprise of sorts. You can join at any stage in the process, so if you join 3 months into a club you will already have access to the first three months that have been published, but then the rest of the club patterns will remain a mystery until they are released. The idea for the Around The World theme came out of the pandemic really. By the end of 2020, everyone was tired of being stuck at home all the time and we were all dreaming of when we would be able to travel again. So I thought, hey why don't we go around the world and explore a few different places with our knitting? So the destinations we visited in this club were cities and places that meant a lot to me for one reason or another.

Are you still teaching workshops? If so, what sort of workshops, and are they virtual or in person?

Yes, I teach a variety of knitting based workshops mainly around various knitting skills / techniques such as two-at-a-time sock knitting or brioche knitting. At the moment I am mostly teaching these classes virtually via Vogue Knitting Live Virtual events, but I am looking forward to getting back to teaching more in person over the coming years.

What’s inspiring you at the moment?

I've always been inspired by colour and texture, so really the inspiration can come from anywhere. But at the moment I think I'm pretty inspired by my daughter. Well, really it's more that she asks me to make her something or picks out some yarn from my stash that she likes, so then that gives me an idea for a design and I go from there!

Can you give us any hints about what’s in store this year?

Oh, there are some very exciting things happening in 2022, but nothing I can share quite yet. I am hoping to get lots of stuff planned and organised in the first half of the year so that by the time we get to the end of the summer I will have my act together for the busy knitting season! In 2021 everything went a bit haywire as we moved in the first few months of the year, so a lot of our time and energy has gone into settling in and updating our home. So really the main thing I'm looking forward to this year is getting back to focusing on my work and getting some new patterns out!

Anything else you would like to share?

Just to say thank you for inviting me to take part in this interview!

Be sure to follow Knitting Expat Designs on Instagram @knittingexpat!