We have a brilliant interview for you this Episode 162, with the fabulous Zanete Hussein who we interviewed during our trip to the UK last summer! She thinks of herself as a knitting architect and is always inventing new techniques, or clever twists on existing ones. She’s exactly the kind of designer to follow if you love improving your skills and learning something new with each new project. Madeleine and I also have two projects to share in Under Construction and we briefly recap our Christmas visiting family in Minnesota, USA.
Zanete Knits
Zanete is a Latvian designer with a huge Instagram following, so many of you will already know her. But in this interview, we talk not only about her favorite constructions and design ideas, but also about how her background as an IT programmer and project manager has shaped her work as a designer.
With most of her colourwork yoke designs, the colourwork pattern extends past the yoke into the main body. Combining this with a large pattern repeat will cause issues with scaling the pattern over different sizes. Her Pink Lotus cardigan is a good example of how Zanete works around this problem. By adding a fake seam along the sides of the body using a simple column of purl stitches, Zanete mimics the look of two pieces of printed fabric being sewn together, allowing for the patterns not to match up perfectly along the ‘seam.’
The Regalia sweater is a beautiful example of how Zanete combines colourwork with lace and textured stitches. Borrowing a lesson from music composition, she started with a simple theme, the fringe on the bottom of the yoke, and repeated it with variations. Zanete also borrowed a pattern repeat from Hitomishita’s stitch library, then added more texture by introducing more bobbles and wrapped stitches. To avoid monotony in the bottom fringes, she alternated them with a pair of delicate cables.
Finding Zanete
- Ravelry: Zanete Knits
- Website: zaneteknits.com
- Instagram: @zaneteknits
Patron Discount - Zanete Knits
Zanete is offering Fruity Knitting Patrons a 25% discount on all her self-published designs. Her collection includes sweaters, cardigans, shawls, socks, and summer tops. Many thanks to Zanete for this generous offer! Fruity Knitting patrons can find all discount details here.
Become a Fruity Knitting Patron
Support the show and help us continue Fruity Knitting by making a small monthly donation. Visit patreon.com/fruityknitting to become a Fruity Knitting Patron.
We work very hard to bring you this program, organising, preparing, and filming all the different segments to make the show as varied and educational as we can. Our aim is for you to always learn something new and to be inspired by the knowledge and creativity of other knitters out there in the world! And, occasionally, we share other areas of the fibre arts you may not have encountered before, such as rug hooking or even tatting. So, if you enjoy this content, please help us continue by making a small monthly donation as a Fruity Knitting patron.
Patron Discount - Lanamania
We recently had a Fruity Knitting online Live Event with our Shetland patrons. And our guest was Claudia Finlay, the organizer of the Munich Knits yarn festival which we featured in Ep. 160. Claudia also has an online shop and she is kindly offering Fruity Knitting patrons a discount off her Lanamania yarns. Patrons can find all discount details here.
Join our Austrian Alps Knitting Retreat with Zanete Knits 11-16 Oct 2026
After our retreat with Zanete this June was quickly booked out, we’re thrilled to welcome her back to another Austrian Alps Knitting Retreat this 11-16 October 2026! Visit our website artisan-retreats.com for more information.
Zanete’s workshops will focus on stranded colourwork, sharing her expert tips on tension and float management, along with a deep dive into the ladderback jacquard method and Japanese short rows. Her designs are also known to be beautifully tailored and perfectly fitted, so finishing techniques will be another key focus of her workshops. On top of this, Zanete is designing a special Austrian Alps Retreat Sweater in our new yarns, which we’re super excited about! And this special design is what her fourth workshop will be centred around.
We’ll by staying at the family run Rieser Resort & Spa. Past participants have been thrilled with this location, so we are very confident in the high quality food and facilities they offer. The resort is in the charming village of Pertisau which lies by a crystal blue lake called Achensee and it’s surrounded by the Tirolian mountains.
- Register to join here.
- Watch our last Austrian Alps Knitting Retreat vlog.
Under Construction
Low Tide by Unwind Knitwear
Early on while designing our yarns together with John Arbon Textiles, we compared our yarn as a 3ply vs. 4ply. Both have the same specks, but we ended up going for the 4ply as it has a beautiful stitch definition. But now we have this left-over 3ply yarn in our gorgeous colourway ‘Billabong’ which I didn’t want to waste.
So, I’ve started knitting the beautiful Low Tide sweater by Rachel from Unwind Knitwear. We featured Rachel as a Knitter of the World in Ep. 157. The delicate lace pattern represents ripples of sand, tiny rivulets of water, and scattered pebbles and shells left on the beach as the tide goes out. The garment is worked top down, mostly in the round with a saddle shoulder and a compound raglan sleeve. So far, I’ve knitted down to the underarms, where the sleeves separate from the body.
This is the first of Rachel’s designs I’ve tried, and I can highly recommend it. Rachel is extremely meticulous and, being a teacher, her patterns are very clear and systematic. She also provides YouTube tutorials for the tricky sections, which is a huge time-saver.
Varde Rundfelt by Rauma Designs
This is Madeleine’s infamous boyfriend-fiancé-husband-sweater and the title tells you just how long she has been working (on and off) on this project…
The original Varde Rundfelt sweater is knitted bottom up. However, Madeleine began with the yoke using a provisional cast on, then knit the body and sleeves top down. This gave her more control over the yoke depth. At first, she used bright blue as the main colour. Although she loves this bright blue, combined with the other colours it did look slightly hideous (her own words). So, she replaced it with a more elegant navy by cutting the yoke, reworking the bottom half, and grafting everything back together again.
After that, she worked very hard to knit the body. But because Ryan was not around at the time, she ended up making the body too tight. And instead of blocking it first in case that made it fit better, she was overly motivated and chose to rip the body and sleeves back to the yoke and start again.
Now, she has reknit the body and almost completed the sleeves. For the body she went up a needle size and it fits Ryan well. But with every lesson learned, a new mistake is made. This time the body is too short!
Credits
- J. S. Bach, The Well Tempered Klavier, Prelude No. 3 in C-Sharp major, BWV 848, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
- Locomotion Commotion Potion by Montana Skies, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License
- Netīšāmi es iegāju by Auli and Tautumeitas, from the album Lai māsiņa rotājās!, Released on: 2017-07-29, ℗ 2017 Lauska, Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises
