The magic of creating with Casey Bernard

Hello and welcome back to series two of the Why I Knit podcast. My name is Dr Mia Hobbs and I'm a clinical psychologist who's passionate about knitting and its benefits for our mental wellbeing. Each episode I interview a different knitter about why they knit and how it benefits their mental health. This week on the podcast, I'm joined by Casey Bernard who co-presents the VeryPink Knits podcast along with Staci Perry. Hi Casey. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you! Thanks for having me.

I always start the podcast with asking where your relationship with knitting began. Where did yours start?

Well, I've been thinking about this since you sent me the questions. I was in graduate school in my mid 20s and then I finished and suddenly I was like, "I have all this free time!" I've always dabbled in some kind of crafty thing, and I started cross stitching and... I don't know what else I was doing. And then I started with crocheting because I knew

I do that if I'm not knitting.

Yeah, exactly! [Laughs] Because my husband would get so mad, he would say, "You've watched the beginnings of so many great movies." [Laughs] And so knitting kept me awake on the couch. And then it just got to be a thing where now it's just part of my life.

Yeah. And did you teach yourself?

Yes, this was pre-YouTube so...

Yeah, same! I always say that: "Pre-YouTube" [laughs] from a... Well, my mum taught me, but when you had problems it was harder! You can't just look stuff up [laughs].

Yeah. And it took a while for me to figure out which schematic in a book worked better for me. I found there were some that showed hands and some that didn't show hands, and when I saw the hands it helped. And then my mom had knit in the past. But now I've gotten her into it again, and she's like more obsessed with it than I am. So she was there to help me, but it took her a while to kind of get going with it too. But yeah,

Okay, and you guys obviously host the VeryPink podcast together. Okay, so you met her through knitting? She didn't teach you. Okay. What kind of things were

Mm-hmm. you knitting at the beginning? I think I was knitting scarves. So the reason I switched and I like knitting more than crochet is you can keep track of the stitches. I crocheted a scarf that was just like wonky, because I kept losing track of the number of stitches. [Laughs] So once I found knitting, I was like, "Oh, it's all there on the needle. I can keep track a little better." I think I was knitting like... you know, my friends were

How did that go?

It turned out really small, and I gave it to my sister-in-law who's really skinny.

Is it usable in water?

Well, it's kind of like, you know, the 70s crocheted kind of thing.

I always just felt like it would just stretch the minute it got wet and that would not work well for me. [Laughs]

Some yarn has elastic in it, so it kind of holds its shape. It's cotton with elastic.

Okay. Yeah, I guess it's not like alpaca then it's just going to hit the floor, isn't it, as soon as you get out the water! [Laughs]

Yeah, I don't think you're really supposed to swim in it.

No, it's more for like hanging out. Okay. And why do you still knit? I guess one of the reasons I contacted you is because I'm really interested from listening to your podcast, the conversations that you and Stacy have about process versus project knitter. And I think you're both quite different ends of the spectrum, maybe, in that. And I've always wondered... Stacy seems to think that she loves knitting and is a process knitter and it's almost like all knitting is equal. Whereas you

I mean, I love the finished project, obviously. And I think we've talked about this before, that I feel like my knitting time is a little bit more limited, because I don't have as much free time as she... not free time, but she has her own day. She's single, doesn't have kids, she's got the dogs and the business to run. But, you know, I have kids, I have a job, I have to cook for everybody, and so I feel like my time is limited. So I want to accomplish something, which may

Would you knit every day?

I would if I had more time. But yeah, I do at least a little tiny bit, usually. Even if it's one row.

You said you feel like it kind of centres you or... I don't know if you said it makes you feel calmer. Do you feel like it gives you other things in terms of benefiting your mental wellbeing?

Yeah. I'm not a good meditator, and it just kind of shuts everything out, I guess, and I can just kind of focus on this thing. And I just love having the the tactile input too, with my hands. And yeah, I like having a finished project, even if I don't keep it. I think about who I'm going to give it to and it just allows my mind to kind of like work through things I'm working on, while I'm working on my knitting.

Do you feel like the finished product benefits you? The experience of giving it to someone, or when you wear it, if someone says, "Oh, did you make your sweater?" or...

Oh, for sure! I feel really excited. I made a Christmas sweater that has a Christmas tree on it, and I'm like,"Oh, I need to wear my Christmas sweater!" It's the week I get to wear this. And now, living in Maine, I definitely get benefits from having all the hats and scarves that I have made, or cowls.

As opposed to Texas where you were before?

Yeah. I knit some gloves for myself last year and they really are better than store-bought gloves. They are warmer. They're just better!

Okay, so you're enjoying that aspect of it. Does it matter what you knit? Does that make a difference? Like does it make a difference what the stitch pattern is or the colour or...?

I have a tendency to buy the same colour. I find that I've knit multiple things that look just like the other thing I knit.

I find I have phases of that. Like at the moment I'd say I'm in a wine-red phase [laughs] probably influenced by the season, and then I have other times when I'm like "Oh, all of my projects are teal! I've just bought more yarn in that colour!" [Laughs] Does it go in phases like that? Or is it like overall you tend to knit one colour more than others.

I tend to do purples and greens and then I'll be like "I am not buying more purple yarn!" I really like black, but black is so hard to knit with because it's hard to see. I'm working on a sweater right now that's like a grey marl, like a... it's not variegated, it's kind of a mixed black and grey. So I've been trying to expand but this last year or so I've been trying really hard not to buy yarn

And the stitch pattern? Does that make a difference?

I like to mix it up. I like to do some colourwork or I like to do some lace. Staci actually last Christmas bought me a sweater pattern, and the yarn for it, that's got a little bit of textured stitch pattern, and then it's got some colourwork in it. So it's kind of like a mixture of both. But sometimes, I like to just sit and knit stockinette. I really

Sure. Do you have different projects for different occasions? Like if you're sitting waiting for a kid to do sports or...

Yeah, I usually have a pair of socks that... I don't really like patterned socks. I like this self-striping yarn. I've knit a couple pairs of socks that have like the lace pattern in it and I don't really enjoy that. I like my socks to be simple. And I even really have gotten to where I only want to do one kind of heel and toe. So I usually have a simple thing like a sock that I can just like carry around that's small. Or just get that done when I don't have focus but I do want to knit

You said you gravitate towards the same colours. I suppose that I have times that I think, "Oh, I want to knit some bright colour" because I feel like it gives me a little boost to my mood that day or something. Does it make a difference when you're working on it? Or are you thinking more about, "No, I want to WEAR that purple sweater" or whatever it is.

Yeah, so I have this sweater that I'm working on. It's like a navy blue base and it has a bright gold and then magenta colour pattern. And when I'm knitting that I'm like, "Oh, I love these colours so much." And it does make me want to work with it a little bit more. And you get excited! Like I love the self-striping yarns. The colour changes and so it gets kind of exciting to switch to the other colour.

Yeah. So that keeps your interest going. Is knitting ever unhelpful for your mental health?

Sometimes, when I feel like I have too many projects going on and I feel a sense of dread... not dread, but I feel like it's just another thing on my list. Like right now I've been trying to make some hats using a little knitting machine. My friend has a shop here in town and she asked me to make a few hats. And it was enjoyable, but at the same time

So were they like shop samples?

No, I just made like six or eight little hats that you can make on the little crank machine. Yeah. Or, you know, I made a hat for a friend

Yeah. So then it felt like pressure. that we went to dinner with the other day and the dog ate it.

Your dog?

Yeah, right before we left.

Oh no!

He just like grabbed it and pulled on it, and so it kind of ruined it. When you're making something for somebody as a gift for a specific day, it was just like that kind of same feeling.

Yeah, sure. I'm not great with deadline knitting. I think I couldn't also do it as a job. I think it would reduce the enjoyment, and it wouldn't be relaxing. Are you gifting a lot of the things you make, or mainly for yourself?

No. I mean, sometimes I'll knit something and maybe the socks come out a little too big, and I'll give them to a friend. Or while I'm knitting this hat that I'm working on that's taking forever, I'm thinking about giving it to a friend, just because I have a lot of hats and I thought she might like a hat. I've knit for my husband, I'll knit for my kids. My son wants a scarf so I'm going to use my machine to make him a scarf.

So they're still good recipients of knitted gifts?

Yeah, they recognise the need for it!

Oh yeah, now that you're living somewhere cold! Okay. I wonder, Casey, if you could tell me about a significant knitting project.

Significant in what way?

Any way. Some people have spoken about something they were knitting at a specific time in their life, or it could be when you mastered some certain skill, or it could be the first thing you ever made, or a complete disaster. It could be anything!

Well, I think about this sweater that I made. I bought this mohair yarn (this is when I was a new knitter), beautiful mohair yarn, and there was a pattern in interweave knit. And I didn't really (obviously) understand gauge. So I had like an extra 12 inches of fabric on my sleeves. It was this pillowy, lovely thing and I worked so hard on it. It was huge. And I got everything right but yeah, it was gigantic. So it really was a lesson to me, how to do that properly.

What became of it? Mohair's also horrendous to rip back, isn't it?

I know! I gave it to Goodwill, to the charity shops. So hopefully somebody found it and is loving it.

Yeah. I'm sure they are.

Yeah. But I do think a lot about... I had this purse that I made that was pretty intricate intarsia, and then it was felted, and I just really love it. I forget about it every once in a while and then I'll find it. And I'm like, "This is gorgeous, a gorgeous design". It's got a big flower on it. So I just remember that was a complicated piece, and I stuck with it and made a nice little thing out of it.

And you still have it?

Mm-hmm.

Did you make it a while ago?

Oh, yeah. It's been probably 10+ years.

That's great. I also normally ask about a knitting high and a knitting low. They could be events; they don't have to be projects.

A knitting low is when I've worked so hard on something and then it comes out and it doesn't fit right or doesn't look the way you wanted it to look. But a high... last year I finished a sweater that's got this rainbow variegated yarn, and it's a super basic sweater. It's just a pullover, but it's like a sweatshirt: cosy. It makes me happy every time I put it on. I purposely knit it knowing that in the dark winter days here, I would be like, "I need some happy rainbow

Is it quite a thick yarn?

No it's DK. It's really soft. It fits me perfectly, and it just fit the bill, you know?

So that's something that makes you feel happy when you put it on?

Yeah, for sure.

And with the lows, are you someone who will rip back if it's not looking how you want it to?

Yeah, for sure. And there's been many projects

Put it in the naughty corner!

Yeah, for sure. that I've ripped back and then just given up on, and put the

But do you feel like that gets any easier over time? yarn away and can't figure out what to do with it.

Yeah, especially when you're a project knitter like me, and I was a younger knitter, I hated to rip stuff back, and I would just deal with the mistake. But now I recognise, no, you want to have that thing look good and you want it to look right. It makes such a difference. I'm thinking about a tank top that I made. The whole back was lace and it was with a thick yarn so it didn't take forever, but I must

I suppose I feel like I've got more tolerant of ripping back, the longer I've been knitting. I've accepted now that that's just part of... like all knitters make mistakes, that's just how it goes. And sometimes I'll rip stuff back, especially maybe at the beginning of a project, trying to get something right. But I often think if I was cast on a desert island with one ball of yarn, and I didn't need it to catch fish to eat or something, I would still knit, even if I

Yeah, for sure. I would probably start finding ways to turn palm tree leaves into yarn or something like that. [Laughs]

Very resourceful.

Well, I learned how to do basket weaving a couple months ago, so now I see, "I could make baskets out of that!" But basket weaving and knitting... there's a lot of similarities! You have fibre and you're weaving. But finding fibre in different kinds of plants... yeah, I would totally do that. [Laughs] Weaving and taking the strings out of coconuts and turning it into yarn.

I didn't even think about all of these things! [Laughs] I think I feel like I'm more tolerant of ripping back, and that maybe I've become more process-focused in other areas of my life. I don't know what you think... whether there's been any overspill from knitting?

Yeah. Like I said, I'm a project-based person anyway, but I've got a lot more patience with myself. And like, a hat that I'm working on that should not take this long, is taking me a couple months... it's like, whatever. There's no deadline. I'll always have something going on. Although my husband... I'm working on a sweater for him and I have put it away and have not picked it up again, and he's like, "Where's my sweater?!"

Okay. But I guess at least he's keen for the end product, which is also a good thing.

Yeah. It's one of those big oversized cardigans. The Big Lebowski sweater.

Oh, yeah. I guess that is probably one of the bigger things to knit, isn't it? An oversized man's sweater? That's a not insignificant project.

Yeah. And the yarn is just not super forgiving. So I think I put it away mostly because there's a pattern to it, and it was getting warmer, and I didn't want this giant thing in my lap. I just haven't had the time. Like I said, I haven't really had a lot of time and energy to knit. My kids have to get to school earlier here than they used to in Texas, and normally I would stay up late at night and I just can't do that because I have to get up so early here. So

Do you need an easier project for times like that? Reading a pattern, if you're tired, it's just too much and you need something...

Yeah.

Sure. I guess getting back into it is probably a challenge in itself, finding where you were in the pattern.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay. Casey, I always end with asking what's the biggest gift knitting has given you for the rest of your life?

That's a good question. I mean, if I'm stuck on a desert island, I can make clothes.

[Laughs] Yes! You won't be naked; you've made a bikini before.

That's right! I'm going to pull those coconut strands and make some yarn. No, I just feel like it's always an opportunity to make something for someone or, you know, have that... I kind of feel sorry for people who don't have a hobby like knitting, and they don't have a thing that they can claim to be their own; that they'll just spend all their days watching Netflix or whatever. It just feels like I have this special talent and special magic, that I can turn something into something.

Okay. So for you, it's about the magic of the creative process or the crafting process, that you've got this special skill that you can make something like that.

Even in times when I'm not knitting a lot, I will always know how to knit. And I will always be able to help somebody learn how to knit. I can't imagine not creating something all the time.

So it sounds like even before you found knitting you were a person who was making things with your hands or doing things like crafting, I suppose.

Right. Like I have my little macrame here.

Yeah, they're amazing! So have you got other hobbies on the go, as well as knitting, like that kind of thing still? Or do you think knitting has kind of superseded the others?

Yeah, knitting is the thing because I can pick it up and put it down, I can travel with it. Like I said, I started with cross stitch, and I didn't like that I had to get all the strings out and figure out what colour I was on, and I felt like it just was... Anything that takes too much setup time, like sewing to me takes up too much setup time. I like to have something that I can just stand there, knit a row, get it done, get a little creative energy out and move on.

I think that's a really common thing, in the conversations I've had, certainly. When I was talking to Betsan Corkhill who talks about therapeutic knitting, about why it's so helpful, it's that it's very accessible. I think a lot of people return to it after having kids. So having small children and needing to do something for themselves. I think that's a common story. And you can just do... you know, when a baby sleeps you never quite know how long that's going

Yeah. And I love it for aeroplane travel and all those times when you're just sitting and waiting. There's a lot of times when I've been like, "Oh, I don't have a pair of socks going and I'm sitting here at the doctor's office. What am I doing?

I once had to wait some really long waiting times for some appointments for my eye. I was there for three hours and everyone else in the waiting room's phone battery had died hours ago and I'd been doing... I don't love just stockinette, generally. I quite like... Like with a yoked sweater, I'm super interested in the colourwork yoke, and then it gets to the inches and inches of just knitting in the round, and I get

Yeah, for sure.

And I suppose for me, I think my feeling of the superpower is slightly different. It's more that I have this hobby I can whip out at any point that makes me feel calmer and gives me a sense of purpose. And that's the way I feel the superpower, rather than turning something into... using sticks and a ball of string or coconut fibre or whatever you're using to make something. [Laughs]

Yeah. And it's so much better than scrolling on your phone, for sure, in a waiting room.

Do you feel like it makes you feel different from scrolling on your phone?

Oh yeah! Scrolling just makes you more anxious and more frustrated, or feeling like you need to buy something or all those different feelings you have. Knitting - it's a sense of accomplishment. Sometimes it's frustrating, but it's a totally different feeling.

Mm. I was interested in something you said earlier about the idea that it gives your mind a chance to think about other things, or almost like process things while you're doing it.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's like meditation in some ways, especially if you're on a long stockinette thing, and you don't really have to think about what you're knitting. Just to be able to do that. You can be working on other things in your head.

Yeah. Do you think you're deliberately doing that, or do you think that's just what happens?

Well, I think that my brain is going all the time. [Laughs] It just happens that knitting is giving me something to work on while it's running in the background.

Do you think that's why you find knitting an easier way to access calm than traditional meditation, because you are someone with quite a busy brain?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I think that's true for me.

Having your hands moving, you can see that sensory feedback too.

Great. Well, Casey, it's been super interesting to talk to you. If anyone wants to find out more about your knitting, or follow you on Instagram, or the podcast, how would they find out about those things?

My Instagram is @kc.knits - that's where I'm more active, although lately I've been kind of taking a little bit of a break. I have a website, www.kcknits.com - it's the letter K and the letter C, even though that's not how you spell my name [laughs]. And then our podcast is the VeryPink Knits podcast. You can get it on any podcast app. And we're on Patreon. We have extra episodes for our Patreon subscribers

The podcast is a Q&A about knitting-related dilemmas. Thank you for your public service. [Laughs] Okay, great. Thank you so much, Casey!

Sure! Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for listening to the Why I Knit podcast. If you'd like to find out more about therapeutic knitting, you can follow me on Instagram at @knittingistherapeutic, or at my website www.therapeuticknitting.org. If you're enjoying the podcast, I would really appreciate it if you could leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. This will help grow the podcast and let more people know about the therapeutic benefits of knitting. And don't forget to subscribe too. Thank you!