Interview with Genevieve Miller

Welcome to our first podcast of Lattes with Dr. Llama. We’re proud to welcome Genevieve Miller, author of “Once Upon a Knit,” as our first guest onto the show. Hit the play button below and join us for the interview.

For those of you, sneaking this read at work, here are the highlights!

Genevieve Miller is a California girl who’s been knitting since she was a child. She is married to her own Prince Charming and is the mother of one prince and two princesses. After teaching kindergarten, fourth grade, and the dramatic arts for eight years, Genevieve took time off to be a stay-at-home mom. She is passing on her love of knitting to her children, as well as teaching students at her children’s school.

Genevieve is the author of Vampire Knits, and her designs can also be found in Knits for Nerds. You can find her these days knitting, hanging out with her family, or teaching herself photography. You can find her on her website here or on twitter here.

Tell us about the book and what your inspirations was.
Fairy tales, mostly! It’s called “Once Upon a Knit” and has 28 projects. It’s divided into 3 main chapters: the first one is called “Into the Woods” and it has creatures and characters and things that you might find in the enchanted forest; the second is “Princes and Princesses” inspired by characters like Snow White; the last section is “Evil Characters”.

What was your favorite project from the book?
The cover project, which was the red riding hood. I had that design in mind for a long time. It’s actually the second design. My daughter wore the first version for her Halloween costume last year. Probably the one I’m most proud of though is the Prince Charming cardigan, because it has a zipper sown in it.

What’s your design process?
Usually, I have an idea and I sketch it out. Then, honestly, I just start knitting. I do a swatch. I take measurements. And I just knit.

What is your advice for budding designers? One of the emails that we get most often on our blog is, “What’s the advice you have for new designers?” And it always puts me at a loss as I haven’t done a book! I always open with “I feel under-qualified to answer this question, so now I want to ask the qualified. What would be your advice?
I don’t know if I’m more qualified. My situation was so bizarre with the first book. It sort of fell into my lap. I had this idea and I brought it onto Ravelry in a group setting. My agent heard about it somehow through Ravelry and contacted me. She helped me write a proposal and we pitched it to about 12 different publishers. All you need is for one to say yes, and Potter Craft said yes. If you have some good ideas, write them down and sketch them out. You can reach out to literary agents or other people who have had knitting books published. Just be prepared for rejection.

What draws you to fantasy inspired designs?
I don’t know. I’ve always really liked fantastical, whimsical, science fictiony types of things. I’ve got 3 kids and we love Star Wars. We love Star Trek.  We’re all just kind of nerdy here.

Before you go, tell us where we can get your book.
It can be found on Amazon, in Barnes and Noble, and hopefully in most Michaels craft stores.

“Once Upon a Knit” hit the shelves today, so don’t wait for our review next week and go get yours now! Thank you for joining us, Genevieve.

If you were not able to listen to the podcast now, bookmark it for later to catch the things you missed like Genevieve and I discussing zippers in knitwear, what it was like to collaborate with a bunch of different designers, and the Rapunzel project that didn’t make it into the book.

~ Megan-Anne
We’ll try to get better at editing audio. Promise.