Let me tell you, we’ve been all oohs and aahs here at Knit with attitude lately, opening boxes filled with the new shades of Vivacious, and under the bags filled with yarny yumminess, what did we find? The new Vivacious collection! A collection filled with kids’ wear that is brilliantly suitable for the bright colours of the Vivacious DK and 4Ply yarns. This is a pattern collection bound to put a smile on your face, both when flickering through the happy pictures by Jesse Wild deciding what to make, and when knitting the actual garments! And what’s more, I’ve been so lucky to get a few minutes with Jeni Hewlett of Fyberspates to tell us everything about Vivacious Kids!

Vivacious Kids is the second Fyberspates collection featuring the Vivacious yarns. Why a kids collection for Vivacious, and why Vivacious for kids clothing?
Vivacious is a very robust yarn in that its hard wearing and you can chuck it in the washing machine without worrying. In addition the colour palette is quite bright and actually perfect for kids clothes. The combination of these two factors meant it was a no brainer that we should do a children’s collection. Its something I have wanted to do for many years, but needed the right yarn for it, Vivacious is Perfect!

For this collection you decided to collaborate with the designers Ella Austin and Rachel Coopey, why were these two designers chosen to create the Vivacious Kids?
I wanted designs from people who had children, and therefore knew first hand what children would wear and what would be suitable. Plus they are two of my favourite designers, and they are both great fun to work with.

There are no frilly cutsie designs in this collection, I see practical and functional garments. Was it a conscious decision to create a collection like this or did the yarn lend itself to that type of designs?
well…..I am lightly adverse to frilly at the best of times! I am a great advocate of rolling up your sleeves and getting muddy, fighting with sticks, collecting treasures, and having a good old ruff and tumble; thats what my child hood was about and I wanted a collection that I would have loved to have worn, especially with the bright colours that make any child smile. Vivacious just lends itself to energetic garments. Apart from the dress – ‘ring-a-ring’, all the other garments were unisex, and we showed this with all the photos throughout the book, this was very important to me that the garments were suitable for both boys and girls.

Finally, the garments are practical, but what makes this collection interesting and exciting for the knitter who makes them?
A lot of people start knitting when they have a child or grand child, I wanted to make sure the patterns weren’t too complicated so that anyone can knit them but also adding small details to keep interest; garter stitch, stripes, soothing cables etc, and I think we managed to achieve a nice balance between simplicity and maintaining interest in the knitting. We also made sure that we mixed the garments up and showed them on different sized children, we wanted to encourage people to think about maybe the fact they could knit a few sizes larger, and the garments would grow with the child, after all the effort we put into knitting and that children grow quickly, we wanted to show that the garments can last.