This is Wenke’s story: it talks about her passion for yarns and knitwear.
Where did you start from?
I studied at the renowned art college Burg Giebichenstein and graduated as a fashion designer in 2008. At the SDBI FASH competition, I was able to win the recognition award with my diploma collection.
This was followed by a studio assistant at Akris in St. Gallen, in which I rediscovered my love for knitting, which had existed since childhood.
How did you get involved with knitting?
A classic job advertisement for the Swiss branch of HUGO BOSS finally kindled my enthusiasm for knit development. I decided to move to Ticino to learn everything about knitting structure development, model design and prototyping for the high fashion industry. I traveled to producers in Turkey, to meetings at the headquarter in Metzingen and I developed many exciting knit swatches mainly for Hugo and Green label.
In 2012 I moved back to my hometown Dresden and took care about my small family. Inspired by my two baby boys I soon picked up needle and thread again and began designing and knitting comfortable clothes for my kids.
A contact with the publishing house EMF in Munich was the initial spark in 2017 to set up my own knitting label under the name tomkeknits. I started with a baby and toddlers book and in the same year an accessories book for women followed both within the popular Hygge series.
Freelance designs for the yarn supplier Schachenmayr follow continuously and even in 2021 new women, toddler and accessories designs are already available or will be published soon. In 2020 I was able together with EMF publishing house to publish the successful book “Islandpullover Stricken”. The book shows 27 top-down knitted models and accessories in Scandinavian style for women and men. It has since been taken under license in various countries and will be available soon in America, Great Britain, Russia and France. My fourth book “Icelandic Gloves Knitting” will follow in the same series in autumn 2021.
What’s next?
If I may say that in the past few years I have made a name for myself as a hand knitting designer and author in the DIY scene, I would also like to work together in the professional industrial knitting sector in the future.
In the beginning of the year, I discovered Feel the Yarn® through social media, for which I can now develop inspiring knit structures and the #colorful_bobble_structure_knit capsule collection with the renowned yarn supplier Di.Vé Filati.
