Designer Focus: Meet Kristen Kittel of Yarn Playground

August 19, 2025

Keeley Richardson

Founder and Chief Fiber Officer

Unsurprisingly the Puget Sound region is home to many fabulous fiber designers – after all, who wouldn’t be inspired by our supportive fiber community and all the natural beauty that surrounds us? With this in mind The Woolpack is launching a new series of features on local fiber designers, and to get things started we are delighted to showcase the talents of one of our Woolpack friends, Kristen Kittel. Many of you will recognize Kristen and her work from local craft markets, the annual Fiber Fusion craft competition and of course, for her fun contributions to the Woolpack Yarn Test Kitchen.

We caught up with Kristen for a Q&A to discover more about the designer behind the beautiful, whimsical Yarn Playground designs.

How long have you been designing and can you tell us about your journey?

Officially, I have been publishing and selling my own tested designs for about a decade, but my fiber and my designing journey started at the same time – more than 30 years ago. As soon as I picked up my first crochet hook, I realized my brain loved to follow a written pattern and then immediately change or improve every possible thing about it (especially trying to make it easier or faster; I’m a huge fan of no-sew projects). My journey has been equal parts ‘Oooh, has anyone ever tried this,” and “oh no, what have I done???” with a healthy dose of frogging projects at 2am, quickly followed by, “ah, well, maybe I’ll try just a couple more rows this other way…”

What are your favorite fibers and why?

Total fiber flirt over here. It’s possible that I’ve never said no to any yarn —because, in my opinion, there is always a use or place or person for each fiber! Whether because of budget, allergies, environmental consciousness or just general preference, one person’s “never” yarn is someone else’s “only” yarn. Personally, I love anything soft enough to make me go “squeeeeee” when I touch it (and yes, I’m considering getting rabbits to start making my own yarn, thank you for asking). My stash is basically a petting zoo at this point. Cotton is most requested for my commissioned pieces, wool and silk are my favorite for wearables, and then, of course, anything with sparkle. Sparkle is my favorite color.

But if we’re really going to be super honest…I even like unconventional, adventurous fibers. I’ve been known to experiment with spaghetti, wrangle wire, or even gather all my family’s plastic bags and turn them into “plarn” (plastic yarn) for weather-proof projects. So far, there’s nothing my crochet hooks and knitting needles won’t try playing with!

Where do you find your design inspiration?

Everywhere and nowhere. I’m unafraid to try things that others are already doing (or get inspired by a sunset, say), but most often I’m struck by something wild and wonderful made from a different material (a weird pattern on my coffee mug, someone’s pants across the street) then I wonder how I could crochet that. The way I move through the world is a bit like everything is a design pattern waiting to happen. Sometimes, though, my inspiration comes from pure spite because someone said, “you can’t crochet that” or “that would look stupid knitted like that” or “whatever you do, don’t ever…” and I can’t wait to prove them wrong. Some of my favorite pieces have been born that way.

Lately, one of my biggest sources of inspiration is finding things that I love and seeing how tiny I can shrink the pattern to make it micro crochet. That’s how so many of my designs end up becoming earrings. (And that’s primarily what I’m bringing to markets this year – plus I love wearing earrings every day and making itty bitty things.)

But most of all, I’m constantly inspired to help bring equity to knitting and crocheting. I seek out patterns I love that don’t seem to exist in the other craft and help develop them – which is why I’m absolutely over the moon about collaborating with Debie from Serial Knitter’s DyeHouse to create crochet patterns for her amazing Skellie Kits! She’s been crushing it with knitted skeleton outfit patterns that people have been going gaga over. Now I’m hoping we’ll knock it out of the park with some new, bi-stitual versions! This weekend we are debuting some very special, baseball-inspired kits and patterns at the Mariner’s Stitch & Pitch event that are easily one of my favorite designs I’ve ever collaborated on!!

What advice do you have for somebody who is thinking about becoming a crochet designer?

Start messy. Embrace frogging. Keep a notebook of all ideas and attempts (even the horrible ones) because you never know what will be useful or whether your best idea will come during lunch, in the shower, or while you’re gaming at 3am. Be sure to join Ravelry, support other designers the way you want to be supported, and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have your patterns tested and tech edited (even as an expert crocheter, I can’t catch every typo and the ideas I get from my testers are invaluable). Probably learn to love your calculator too – math and crochet are frenemies who secretly need and love each other. Most importantly, if it makes you happy, you’re doing it right!

Where can we find your lovely creations?

Yarn Playground is on Insta, Ravelry, and Etsy as @Yarn-Playground or you can always search for me, @KristenKittel. But Instagram is going to be kept the most up to date for where/how to find both my patterns and finished fiber goods. If you are heading to the Stitch & Pitch game this weekend, be sure to stop by and say “Hello!”

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