About Knitting Today

Knitting For A Living is your daily source of knowledge about making a living from your hobby.

The Person Behind: Dr. Julia Riede

Julia is a nuclear engineer teaching knitting and knitwear design. She approaches knitwear design in a logical and analytical way to identify shortcuts to better written knitting patterns and advanced knitting techniques. Her extensive series about shawl design is the top reference on the subject and are available as both paper and Kindle editions on Amazon as well as PDF ebooks.

Besides knitting, she is studying medicine at U Regensburg, Germany.

The Personal Origin Story

Hi, I’m Julia, a regular girl who used to have a regular job. I love the little things in life and try hard not to take myself too seriously. Laughing with friends, knitting and enjoying my family are three of my favorite things.

My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was eight years old.

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After a long break, I picked up knitting again during the pregnancy with my second child and have not stopped since.

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I have a big family and I’m loving it.

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I like cats and colorful hair styles.

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So does my daughter.

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I’m deeply in love with my husband.

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I’m making a living from knitting, supporting my family while I’m in Med School (Regensburg, Germany).

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Creating patterns has always been more interesting than following them for me. Being a nuclear physicist, the math involved was a challenge rather than being problematic, as it is for most knitters.

I focus on the design of socks, shawls and traditional Alpine stockings (Trachtenstutzen). Following my heritage as an Austrian, the rich tradition of Alpine knitting has always been close to my heart. As this tradition fades, like so many others do, it’s my mission to preserve traditional Alpine knitting and turn the concepts into knitting patterns for fashionable items wearable in the 21st century.

At the moment, I’m working on my upcoming book series on knitwear design (Volumes one and two of Shawl Design in Plain English have been published already, Volume three will be published in a few days!) and knitting patterns for more stockings, socks, shawls and garments.

And I applied for Med School. And I got in! Who knows, maybe I’ll be knitting in Med School soon! I’ll be Knitting in Med School starting in October 2015 in Regensburg, Germany.

Want to get in touch? Feel free to send me an email anytime or meet me on Twitter or Ravelry. If you happen to be on Facebook, join us at the Knitting Today Facebook Page!