March turned out to be quite an exciting month at our little shop in Spring, TX. We ended the month with a trunk show featuring Miss Babs's yarn collection. We also welcomed the delightfully eccentric Casapinka to teach several workshops in our store. This was our first time hosting Casapinka, but it surely will not be the last. Bronwyn is the brains behind the quirky brand of Casapinka, and we sat down to chat (and knit) with her after the fibers settled from all the new stitches she taught us in four workshops over three days.
Casapinka has officially been in business for about 6 years. About 3 years ago, she introduced us to her alter ego, Sharon, from security. Sharon is real. A real cat. While Bronwyn's design career has spun from a passion for knitting, something we can all relate to, she has also expressed fondness for the knitting/crocheting community. She strives to provide what people desire, and when voices of dissent arise, Sharon enters. Sharon is really less of an alter ego than the humorous boundary Bronwyn has intuitively crafted to handle the less fun aspects of running a business. Casapinka has a talent for spinning humor into her brand for what ultimately becomes a profound levity. Oh, no, here we go getting all poetic on the YSB blog again.
Before we get too far, let's clarify the trinity of Casapinka. Casapinka is a blog that started in 2006 as a digital documentation on Bronwyn's then creative outlet: redecorating her house in Nashville. There was never a lack of pink in the casa de Bronwyn. With a career in emergency medicine, the blog and interior decorating became a much-needed vessel for her creativity. Casapinka became the brand of her design career when debilitating Lyme disease halted her medical career. So we have 1) Bronwyn --the designer, the human-- 2) Casapinka -- the brand-- and 3) Sharon--the cat.
How did the knitter become a designer? The luscious softness of merino with the undulating colors from the hand-dyed yarns inspired Bronwyn. A simple prompt from her local yarn store to design something with a fresh inventory of Mad Tosh gave way to a passion-fueled career in knitwear design. She found inspiration in Indie-dyed yarn, created a pattern, and the yarn sold. Thus, a business was born.
You may already know the history of the highly-followed Casapinka. We asked her five questions you may not know the answers to.
Five Questions for Casapinka:
- What was the first thing you knit? An intarsia sweater, pink with black. Instead of knitting from bottom right, I knit from bottom left, so it was backward! Now, this was in the 1980s. It was my first frogging experience.
- What is your favorite type of cuisine? Malay
- You love to travel. If there is one place in the world you would want your kids to visit in their lifetime, where would it be? New Zealand
- What is your favorite thing to do when you are not knitting? Hike
- What is one piece of advice you would give to a new designer? Don't quit.