Meet the designers for Laine Issue 17
In Laine Magazine 17, we present designs from eleven outstanding designers from around the world. Meet Julia Disini, Rastus Hsu, Elena Solier Jansà, Pauliina Leisti, Veronika Lindberg, Marie Régnier, Jacquline Rivera, Lene Tøsti, Maija Vasala, Pope Vergara and Thea Vesterby.
Julia Disini
Julia Disini designed her first cardigan when she was 12 years old, and creating her own garments has been her speciality ever since. Knitting is a part of her personality and her easiest way to express creativity. Julia — who is based in Los Angeles, USA — describes her design style as “California casual with Scandinavian at heart”. She loves light, fluffy fibres in natural or subtle colours and prefers knitting bottom up in one piece. She finds it works best for the oversized cardigans and sweaters that are her favourites.
Dress to Impress – Julia’s pattern for this issue – is a fluffy, oversized cardigan designed for moments when you want to feel gorgeous without needing to dress up.
Rastus Hsu
Rastus Hsu’s favourite place to knit is in a coffee shop at the university he went to. He goes there so often that the owner reserves his favourite seat for him and his husband! Rastus lives in a small town near the north-west coast of Taiwan, working as a knitwear designer and a knitting YouTuber. He loves fashion and is deeply inspired by geometric lines and shapes, architectural textures and colours in nature. As a designer, he mixes something classic and elegant with a modern structure and silhouette.
For this issue, Rastus designed the rectangular JingWoo shawl. It is inspired by origami, a traditional Japanese paper-folding art.
Elena Solier Jansà
Elena Solier Jansà lives in the Catalonian countryside, running her yarn company, Xolla. The creative process is the axis of her life: she knits, she sews, she weaves, she makes ceramics, and sometimes she spins yarn or paints. But knitting is her main medium, through which she can express her love for what she thinks is the best material in the world: wool. Elena is inspired by what surrounds her, and nature plays a big part in her combination of colours. She prefers earthy tones and likes to knit the most intricate patterns.
For this issue, Elena designed Utopia, a cropped, top-down pullover with ³/₄ sleeves.
Pauliina Leisti
A few years ago, Pauliina Leisti was running her own women’s-wear brand, for which she designed knitwear and other apparel. Pauliina has always loved knitting and when she decided to bring the ready-to-wear brand to an end, hand-knit design came naturally. Pauliina lives in the small town of Tuusula, Finland. The key elements of her style are comfort and feel. Pauliina is good with materials and precise about details, and she loves carefully finished garments.
For this issue, Pauliina designed Aamuyö: a delicate top-down cardigan with a relaxed fit.
Veronika Lindberg
Veronika Lindberg — or Kutova Kika, as her social media followers know her — can’t remember a time when she didn't know how to knit; making stitches has always been part of her DNA. These days, she works as a knitwear designer and a YouTuber, living in an old wooden house about 30 minutes away from Helsinki, Finland. Veronika describes her design style as joyful, feminine, cosy, easy-to-wear and contemporary, with playful details. Sweaters are her speciality: she has designed more than a hundred of them!
For this issue, Veronika designed Linescapes: a cosy yet elegant cardigan with a fold-down collar.
Marie Régnier
Marie Régnier spent her childhood in Ivory Coast, and currently she is living near Paris, France. Marie’s primary profession is as a banking adviser, but during her maternity leave, she started designing knitwear. Marie likes to work with fine wool and intricate stitch patterns. She is fond of cable knitting, twisted stitches and all kinds of ribbing. Everything geometrical and symmetrical catches her eye, and architecture as art and worldwide traditional crafts also inspire her.
For this issue’s Seashells top, Marie wanted to combine strongness and softness, from the textured and structured fabric to the delicate border in crochet lace.
Jacquline Rivera
Jacquline Rivera says that her life is “devoted to the pursuit of yarn happiness” — dyeing yarn with her sister for their brand Lattes & Llamas is her profession, but designing knitwear is her passion. Jacquline lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, USA. She discovered her love of designing colour charts when she and her sister founded Geek-A-Long, a mystery blanket project raising money for charity. Many of her ideas sprout from the elegant curves or geometric shapes found in architecture.
For this issue, Jacquline designed Socks à la Mode: cuff-down socks with strawberry and lemon ice-cream cones in stranded knitting on the leg.
Lene Tøsti
Lene Tøsti lives in the Norwegian countryside. She works as a breast and endocrine surgeon and designs knitwear in her spare time. Her mother taught her basic knitting maths when she was about ten years old and helped her make the first sweater of her dreams, a pastel rainbow raglan. Many of Lene’s designs have floral or botanical motifs, and she also likes looking at old knitting and lace chart books for inspiration. She mostly designs stranded colourwork cardigans with a feminine silhouette, lace shawls and summer tops.
For this issue, Lene designed Sound of Spring: a slightly asymmetrical triangular shawl with texture, lace and stripes.
Maija Vasala
Although Maija Vasala has been an eager knitter for years, the Kainuu sweater is only her second published pattern. Maija lives in Helsinki, Finland. She typically knits on the mornings in a commuter train on her way to work and in the evenings on the couch while watching Downton Abbey reruns. Maija loves colours and she is very particular about them. Her sweaters have lots of positive ease, and she also likes the look of twisted rib in her designs.
For this issue, Maija designed the Kainuu sweater with beautiful colourwork sections both in the yoke and the hem.
Pope Vergara
Pope Vergara comes from Santiago de Chile and works as a full-time knitwear designer. Her mother is a fashion designer, so Pope was born among fabrics and yarns. Many of Pope’s designs are about feelings or sensations. She is inspired by nature, the human body, music, science, art… Pope likes mixing fibres and materials, all very different in style, from more “rock” to feminine ones — always with her personal stamp. She is good at adding details and decorations to fabrics.
Pope’s pattern for this issue, Liberty, is a light-weight sweater with delicate ruffles, beads and puff sleeves.
Thea Vesterby
Thea Vesterby lives in a city called Holte outside Copenhagen, Denmark. She has a part-time day job at a global digital consulting company, and works as a knitwear designer in her free time. Thea started knitting in 2019 when she was suffering from stress-related illnesses. Her two daughters thought that knitting might be good for her, and she noticed how knitting made her brain active again in a new, positive way. Thea’s design style is feminine, with a fondness for pinks and blues.
Thea’s Wave sweater is worked from the top down, featuring Stockinette Stitch and a lovely lace pattern.