Warm Welcome to Cold Feet Bad, Warm Socks Good!
Who doesnt love to have warm feet in cold weather and look at colourful wool socks? Or wear them in shoes and let those cheeky colours peek out over the top? For all people who have feet and love them warm I offer you handmade socks which I have previously only made for friends and family and love making them.
I am moving my studio and need your help paying for the move, redecoration, new furniture, tools and to establish a small medical fund for my cats. (www.etib.org, more backstory below) In return I offer you handmade socks or carefully crafted personal audio or video of my cats.
You can choose what colour your socks will be and benefit from multipacks!
Yes, it´s nuts to offer this in august, but think of the delivery being just in time to northern hemisphere winter!
Perks
You may choose between personal videos/audio of my cats as perks or handmade socks which come in short and long. Dont forget to write which size/s you want! (see size chart below)
Cat perks
Choose between purring/audio+pic (for therapeutic benefit play in loop) and video of preferred cat/s. When choosing video, you may make a wish: meowing, purring, running, cuddling etc (only if the cats complies though…).
Sock Perks
Choose between single pair and multipacks and name me one main colour per pair and size. Pattern and other colours will be a suprise! They are made with soft, easy to care for yarn made from 75% wool +25% polyamid blend in 4ply thickness in lots of colourful patterns made in Germany. You can wear them over other socks or barefoot, wear them at home or in your regular cold weather shoes. Caring for them is easy: machinewashing with the wool programme or as I like to do wash them with shampoo and rinse with conditioner for softness.
Sizes: S – EU 36-38 / M – EU 39-41 / L – EU 42-44 / XL- EU 45- 47
You are also welcome to donate without perk or anonymously and will keep you updated with the progression of the campaign Please help in spreading the campaign in social media. I am immensely grateful for all your help and will answer your questions gladly about campaign, knitting and cats.
You are welcome to make suggestions for perks!
Delivery Time
Delivery for audio, pic and video are planned till end of 2017. Socks can take up to March 2017, depending on the move taking place and the work I do for a living. If you want to gift the socks to someone for Christmas let me know. If you are in the northern hemisphere I will put you first in line but I do have to point out the handmade process of making the socks can take it´s time (see below) and that I am doing this on my own (nope, no interns in the sweatshop). If changes occur, I will let you know asap. I thank you for your understanding.
Breakdown of Spending
I made following estimate towards spendings:
€ 200,- Kickstarter
€ 200,- Payment Transactions
€ 500,- Sock yarn
€ 1000,- Moving firm
€ 500,- Renovations
€ 600,- Shelves, tables, etc
€ 800,- cats medical fund
Should the donations exceed the € 3800,- I will split the amount evenly between work stuff like machines, tools etc and the cats who also need a new climby, scratchy, sleepy tree (the old one is a few boxes on top of each other and the cardboard has been lovingly „crafted“ over the last years).
How I fell in love with handmade socks and how I make them
I remember it well. In college I met my friend and it was a really cold winter in Berlin so I complained that I couldnt find any nice warm socks. So she gifted me a handknit pair made by her grandmother and I was in love. I studied them while also wearing them and tried to find out how they were knitted (no I did not look it up in a book….I just like to find out how things work on my own). I bought sock wool and it took me several tries till I was happy. Until then I only had a choice of wool that I could find in the shops and then TADA! the internet and I found a whole lot more colourful and crazy patterned yarns to knit. I was still hand knitting then, a pair of socks taking me 2 weeks and getting very addicted! But when I got my first Brother knitting machine with double bed I came round to knitting on the machine as with the amount of hand knitting that I was doing, my fingers quickly hurt and had dents (I was studying and working at the time and need my hands to work).
So after a time I arrived at the following combination of hand and machine knitting: 1) I handknit the ribbing 2) then transfer the ribbing to the machine to knit the sock part (tube, heel, tube, toe part) 3) and hand sew the toe so there will be no seem to see or feel. This has for me the best advantage towards fully machine knit socks, as there is no seam in the ribbing (flat knitting machines can only knit ribbing flat) and hand finishing means no visuable/feelable seam. The socks last me about 3 years with good care, have minimal felting at the heel if you wear shoes/boots and can be easily repaired (yes, a „how to“ is coming). I love to repair them with different coloured wool for more glorious colour!
I love knitting socks, they make me feel cosy and warm on the inside and outside. The colours and the pattern are mesmerising and I like how it develops along the „foot“.
Backstory
My name is Victoria and I am a knitwear designer working with knitting machines (more in „About Me“). I named my studio the „Electronic and Textile Institue Berlin“ where I offer support for students and artists and run an artist in residence program where people can rent space and the use of the machines to learn knitting and do their projects. I also do my own projects here and offer workshops.
My studio is in Berlin, Gesundbrunnen (it means healthy spring) which is a lovely and lively place to live and work full of quirky history and a small river running through. Many changes have been happening, new people moved in and it has become very popular. Unfortunately the building that my studio is in has been sold and all business contracts have been terminated. This small space has been a home to people who offer dancing lessons, art therapy, furniture making, sculpture, recycling and knitting (ETIB/me). The only constant thing in life is change. It makes me sad as it was my professional home for 6 years and I put a lot of work into it. Now I see it as a opportunity for change and exciting new adventures. I dont know where my search for a new place will lead me but to get there I need your help to move.
Also I want to allocate some of your donations towards my 7 cats as an emergency medical fund. In the last few years several needed dental surgery and I have two chronically sick cats of which one needs daily heart medication. To get back on my feet after the move and not have to worry about my cats for meds I am asking you to be generous. They are a funny and adorable bunch. I will post portraits, cv´s, audio and video as teasers.
About me
I live and work in Berlin and grew up here though born in the UK. I studied fashion design at the College of Applied Arts Berlin and the London College of Fashion and did my master thesis on Mongolia. Mainly I work with Brother knitting machines and have several hacked machines that run with the AYAB software and the VVVV knitting app. Hacked means the old hardware is taken out and replaced with an arduino (minicomputer) and a shield into which the machine plugs. Then you can plug it into the computer and run it with above programs. I love colour and texture and yarns and have been buying yarns and fabrics and machines since even befor studying. I taught myself how to use the knittingmachine and knitwear design. I love to knit art as well as clothes. I also have a passion for teaching and offer workshops but also teach at different schools ranging from secondary education, to job training and higher education at art and design schools. I also love my job at the Technical Museum Berlin where I offer Miniworkshops for childern and grownups and everyone gets to take home a patch of knitwear.
Have I mentioned I have 7 cats? 😀
Electronic + Textile Institute Berlin 
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