A Design Internship to Dream About: Meet our Intern Karin!

In this guest post by Karin Cohen, you’ll see what it’s like to intern in New York City for Lion Brand Yarn! Karin takes us on her journey:

From Shenkar to Lion Brand Yarn

My name is Karin Cohen, and I’m from Israel. I came to New York for a special reason: to do an internship at the Lion Brand Yarn company.

I studied textile design in Shenkar College of Engineering and Design and majored in knitting. It all began when David Blumenthal started donating yarns to Shenkar and we used them to make interesting wearable items that we crochet or knit. It’s like art you can wear!

One of my designs for a class at Shenkar College	The finished garment.

At the end of the design course, the top three students interview for an internship at Lion Brand Yarn: and here I am! I started my internship in July and have been in love ever since!

I feel like I’m in a big beautiful dream; so many yarns, so many opportunities, so many things to see, exhibitions, art galleries, interesting meetings, so much fun! This is totally a dream come true.

At My Internship

I have an amazing project every month; I’m doing a special project with the featured yarn(s) of the month, and other Lion Brand yarns. Last month, I worked with Hometown USA^® exclusively. I started to do some different swatches using different techniques to experiment and test the yarn; I noted qualities, drape, the weight of the fabric after you knit it, and afterwards I realized what works the best for this yarn is a cowl.

Working with a loom-woven piece.	I designed this cowl.

At Lion Brand’s offices in NYC.	My sketches and yarn samples.

The Design Process

I think that when you design the most important thing is the process. You have to explore the yarn or the material you work with, then figure out what you want to do, and enjoy doing it — start working on your vision.

Test the colors; see which colors work together and whether you want to use more than one yarn with this technique. I also think about which color people would like to wear. I am considering a lot of things during designing —  it’s interesting!

I was so inspired by the works I have seen at the exhibitions I saw at Spin Expo, the MoMa, and the Brooklyn Museum.  I have also participated in meetings about new products we want to develop.

It is a great experience — I try to embrace all, learn as much as I can, and use my knowledge to develop new things in knitting and crochet.