Sad Mag adores holiday handmades. In this second instalment of crafty coverage (see Kate’s first interview with Fox & Fancy here!), Kate Fowlie catches up with the talented sisters behind Pip & Pin.
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Pip & Pin is the brainchild of Katie and Meghan, two sisters from Abbotsford who are enviously dextrous, crafty and enterprising. The grandmother-taught crafters specialize in one-of-a-kind, handmade knitwear, from chunky infinity scarves to cozy shawls to headbands. The pieces are in the works all summer—& now’s the time things start heating up for Pip and Pin.
If you need some seriously well made, love-injected gifts for your pals this winter, you’ll have plenty of chances to check out Pip and Pin’s cozy creations before the holidays—the duo has 5 craft shows before the big ‘uns for local crafters—Make it! and Got Craft? It’s clear that Katie and Megan couldn’t be more excited for the holiday handmade craziness.
Sad Mag caught up with the sisters to find out what it’s like to be fiercely committed chicks with sticks in a world of cookie-cutter clothing.
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What’s it like to work with your sister?
Megan: It’s wonderful! We’re so different, but we really know how to talk to each other and communicate effectively. A lot of the time, the things I don’t like to do she’ll do, and vice versa, so it works out well.
Katie: Because of our divided skill sets, it works well. It’s fun for us to hang out together, too. We always have a good time doing it.
Megan: We both grew up in Abbotsford, and I live there now. Katie lives in Vancouver.
Were you crafty as kids?
Katie: Really crafty. There’s a big age difference between us though, so we were little at different times – we didn’t really craft together back then.
Megan: I worked with a lot of fabric. I remember at grandma’s house, I would hang out in her craft room and make doll clothes. She had all this crazy yarn and fabric in there.
Katie: I illustrated a lot, I was into painting. Our whole family is artistic though. Our grandma actually taught us how to knit. We learned at the same time, Megan was young I was a teenager.
Was it love at first stitch?
Katie: I was terrible at it for a long time but I just found that it’s so methodical and relaxing. I started knitting a lot when I was in school and had a crazy schedule. It would chill me out in the evenings. Then all of a sudden, we had all this knit stuff on our hands. Then Meghan found out about Etsy and she was like, we have to sell this stuff!
Megan: When I was living in Manning Park for a year working at the lodge at the top of the ski hill, I wasn’t working for a month or so during the off season, I’d knit hats for people in exchange for homemade dinner. I got a lot of good leftovers.
What inspires you?
Katie: At the beginning, we started with the collection of our grandma’s wool, and we had so much of it but none of it matched. The yarns inspired us. We kind of create things from that. Megan and I will pull form the same stuff, but our tastes are so different it makes what we have so diverse. People drop off bags of yarn for us because we love putting together random pieces of yarn.
Megan: The first time it happened it was our first market in Abbotsford, this woman came by and loved our stuff – later that day she came back with a huge bag of yarn she’d bought for her daughter and she never used it. She was like “here, you guys are awesome, take this!”
Katie: Yeah, a random customer, that was so lovely! Friends grandmas and moms will give us yarn too.
Megan: And people cleaning out their closets.
What do you do when you’re not knitting?
Megan: I work at a coffee shop, but I like camping and in the summer lots of outdoor adventuring.
Katie: I’m a graphic designer for mid century modern furniture. I also do freelance work for a hotel, and a bunch of other things. Aside from working, there’s no time for anything else. Christmas at Mycroft is our first show, then Make It, then a couple small ones, and then Got craft is our last one. We have to be knitting all year to have enough stock.
Megan: Which is hard in the summer, we can get lazy.
How is your stock different in the summer?
Megan: We don’t tailor much to the summer right now because winter takes up so much of our concentration. Even in summer, we’re making all these big chunky pieces.
Katie: We did make other stuff this year so we could participate in some spring shows this year. We made these hand-dyed jersey knit infinity scarves. We haven’t taken pictures of any of it yet. It was fun it was unexpected results. What I had envisioned the dying process would create was different. I guess that’s all it is, an experiment. It was a new medium for us.
Megan: We had no idea what we were doing.
Katie: Hopefully next year we’ll get involved in one spring show well see how it does.
What are you most excited about for the holidays?
Katie: I was just saying to Megan how much we used to love Hallowe’en, I’d always go out and make a costume it was always a fun holiday we put so much effort into. Ever since we started this company, its like Halloween doesn’t exist. It’s just straight into holidays and knitting and preparing for shows now.
Megan: We turned into those people.
Katie: Holidays are so different for us now. I find that actually Christmas to be relaxing. We’re done then. Because, from mid-November to mid-December, we don’t have day off, were crazy at the markets, we’re on, were having fun and talking to other crafters and customers, and then it’s over and we have all this time.
Megan: We get to see friends and family, clean the house, that usually comes first.
How long have you been doing craft shows?
Katie: Fieldstone Vintage Market in Abbotsford. That was probably our first one. The year after that was when we decided to be serious and apply for the rest of the markets. You can’t just decide to go to the market and go, it’s a whole process.
Megan: We were shocked we got into the first year we applied to all lot of the big markets.
Katie: I branded us in school, when we started the company. I went to school originally for interior design and then I went for graphic design. I was in school for graphic design when we started our business. My teachers let me pull the company into my projects. I created our logo and all our brand name and we had a website so we looked for real.
Meghan: We looked for real – whether we were or not.
What’s next for pip and pin?
Katie: Megan designs most of our patterns, she’s, technically speaking, better at knitting than I am. We decided this year at Knit City to launch our patterns, so we’ve been selling our patterns and they’ve been doing well.
Meghan: Hopefully we’ll have a booklet we can put together for next year.
Katie: We do have some crazy plans but I don’t know if we can do them while we’re working jobs. I really want to do a knit furniture design launch, but that’s a really big project. We might need help with that one.
Megan: I’ve always wanted to transition well into spring and summer so that we can potentially one day have this as our full time business as opposed to something we just do in the winter.
Katie: We have a bunch of knitting machines we haven’t learned to use. We need a Grandma to take us on and workshop us on it. They’re really complicated machines. We got them at thrift stores.
Megan: We have like 3 and we haven’t touched them yet. One of them I got from my friend grandma’s friend who’s in a clothing guild. She also spins wool. All she wanted was a donation to her church for it. I was like “I can do that!”
You don’t feel like you’re giving away all your secrets?
Megan: It can be a little hard to let go sometimes.
Katie: People that knit will know they can knit and go knit it, but sometimes you just want to appreciate the product without having to do it yourself.
Megan: You look at something and think, I could do this, but am I actually doing to do it?
What do you love most about being part of Pip and Pin?
Katie: One thing that’s been great about taking this on is being involved in the craft community has been an amazing experience. Everyone shares equipment, gives each other tips and we’ve made so many friends.
Megan: Even if you’re “competition,” everyone is still so supportive and welcoming. It’s a great environment.