Meet the designers for Laine Issue 29

In Laine Magazine 29, we present designs from thirteen outstanding designers from around the world. Meet Pauline Fanguin, Joanna Filip, Saysha Greene, Kaori Katsurada, Marija Korać, Sarianna Lehtonen, Sara Markkula, Paula Narkiniemi, Sari Nordlund, Anne-Sophie Nørby Velling, Serena Qiu, Camille Romano and Lis Smith.

Pauline Fanguin 

Pauline Fanguin was born in France but has been living in Lausanne, Switzerland, for 16 years and now considers herself both Swiss and French. Besides knitwear design, she is a geoinformatics engineer who creates maps and cartographic tools. Pauline is inspired by travelling and architecture, and she loves to reproduce sewing techniques in her knitted patterns.

For this issue, Pauline designed the Murano top, which features an eye-catching pattern of irregular vertical stripes.

@paulaine_ch

Joanna Filip  

Joanna Filip is Polish but has been living in Brussels for almost ten years. With background in language and literature studies, she hopes to become a full-time knitwear designer one day. Joanna enjoys playing with textures and colours to add subtle interest while keeping everything easy to wear and effortlessly comfortable, and never feeling overdressed.  

For this issue, Joanna designed the Cerise sweater, worked in lace and stockinette stitch. 

@joann.fil

Saysha Greene

Saysha Greene is based in New Jersey, USA, where she designs knitwear patterns and provides crochet and knitting in­struc­tion at a local yarn store. For her, knitwear design offers endless opportunities to learn new things and to challenge herself to find the solution that will bring an idea to life. Saysha designs classic, traditional pieces while incorporating modern elements, like a graphic cable or cultural motif.  

For this issue, Saysha designed the Inkwell sweater featuring an overall diamond lace motif.

@insayshable.knits 

Kaori Katsurada  

Kaori Katsurada comes from Ishikawa, Japan, and lives in a rural town surrounded by sea and mountains. In addition to working as a knitwear designer, Kaori is the owner of a yarn shop called amumu. She is often inspired by the environment she lives in — the rich nature surrounding her, the mountains and wide skies, the abundance of plants and the quiet beauty of old townscapes and vintage clothing. 

For this issue, Kaori designed the Languid sweater, featuring 2 x 1 brioche stitch and a relaxed silhouette. 

@kao_knit

Marija Korać  

Marija Korać is a Serbian knitwear designer who also provides services for other designers, including tech editing, grading and ghostwriting. By profession, she is an engineer with a PhD in metallurgy and works at a university. Knitting allows Marija to express her creativity through a slow, mindful process. She values clean construction and patterns that are engaging to knit yet practical to wear. 

For this issue, Marija designed the Sirocco lace top, inspired by the idea of movement and flow. 

@macakorac

Sarianna Lehtonen  

Sarianna Lehtonen is a textile artisan and designer based in Pirkanmaa, Finland. She hopes her designs bring joy to knitters and strives for playful, colourful patterns with a retro vibe. Right now, Sarianna is most inspired by quilting, ceramics and vertical stripes. The style and music of the 1960s and 70s are also constant sources of inspiration.

For this issue, Sarianna designed the Summertime socks featuring wavy vertical lines.  

@sarianna_lehtonen_crafts

Sara Markkula  

Sara Markkula comes from Tampere, Finland, and designs knitwear as a hobby. Knitting is something that brings her joy and calms her down — but she also likes to consider knitting as a way to keep her brain active and healthy. When it comes to design, the saying ‘less is more’ describes Sara’s style quite well. She sees her designs as timeless pieces that are worn year after year. 

For this issue, Sara Markkula designed the Isabell sweater, worked in brioche stitch with a single strand of silk-mohair yarn.  

@knittingsbyme

Paula Narkiniemi  

Paula Narkiniemi is a Finnish knitwear designer, content creator and the author of the book Everyday Knits: Easy Wardrobe Essentials (Laine Publishing). She lives in Kirkkonummi in the countryside and loves to design classics with a twist, adding something surprising to her knits: perhaps a clever design detail or a texture that keeps the knitting motivation going.

For this issue, Paula designed Zendaya: a modern short-and-top set with stripes on the sides.

@poolaknits 

Sari Nordlund  

Sari Nordlund is a full-time knitwear designer based in Helsinki, Finland. She is especially fond of textured knits — it doesn’t matter if it’s lace, cables or just knit and purl combinations, as long as it’s not stockinette stitch in the round! Sari is inspired by colours, architecture, movies, music and art, but also by what is happening in the fashion world and street styles.  

For this issue, Sari designed the Shell Song tee featuring a lace and cable pattern and a relaxed, boxy fit. 

@sari_n_

Anne-Sophie Nørby Velling 

 Anne-Sophie Nørby Velling comes from Aarhus, Denmark. She founded her knitwear design studio, Augustins, while studying at the Aarhus School of Architecture. Intricacy and contrast are the guiding design parameters in Anne-Sophie’s work. Whether through volume, patterning, tactility or colourways, she seeks silhouettes that interpret history and translate a sense of nostalgia.  

For this issue, Anne-Sophie designed the soft and roomy Hvede cardigan that is all about textures.

@augustins.dk

Serena Qiu  

Serena Qiu comes from New York. They teach art history at a college, and also have a studio practice in fibre and textile art. Serena loves thinking about construction techniques or colourwork features that result in using as much of a full skein as possible — and all the scraps! They try to combine this zero-waste practice with ways of adding colour, texture or visual joy to a knit.

For this issue, Serena designed the striped Uru shawl, which uses intarsia and slip-stitch colourwork.

@ozukoknits 

Camille Romano

Camille Romano comes originally from France but now lives in Helsinki, Finland. She is a trained graphic designer and art director who also designs knitwear. Camille’s style is quite simple — she makes what she’d like to wear herself! She likes fairly simple, oversized and cropped pieces with some sort of twist or details that will hopefully make them interesting for others to knit and wear.

For this issue, Camille designed the Leija tee: a loose, top-down piece knitted in fluffy alpaca yarn. 

@camillejulieromano

Photo: Henri Vogt

Lis Smith

Lis Smith comes from the USA, and while holding her coastal New England roots at heart, she happily calls the Pacific Northwest her home, with a posse of mischievous cats vying for lap time. A love of textiles and handicrafts beyond knitting, such as quilting and embroidery, inspires and informs Lis’ process, with textured stitches and cables as her favourite elements to design with.

For this issue, Lis designed the Camp Bandana shawl worked in seeded rib. 

@oldsaltstudios

Learn more:
Laine Magazine Issue 29
Pattern Previews for Laine Magazine Issue 29
Pattern Previews for Laine Magazine Issue 29 on Ravelry