Celebrity Interview: The Candi Factory

From her hippie past to her multi-hyphenate present career, designer Candi Jensen has forged a “bitextural” life. It’s a life that includes producing the PBS television series Knit & Crochet Today, writing books and putting the finishing touches on an upcoming yarn line that bears her name. YMN caught up with Jensen in a laughter-filled phone call, her 19-year-old cat mewling possessively in the background. Take a trip with us to CandiLand.

YMN: We have an article in this issue on second acts. What were you doing before you became a career fiber artist? And how long have you been at it?

CJ: It’s pretty much been full-time since 1982.

YMN: You’ve had a lot more staying power than most.

CJ: Just when I think I’m out, it sucks me back in. [laughs]

YMN: It has a way of doing that. You’ve been through a lot of the highs and lows of the industry.

CJ: I really have.

YMN: What sticks out in your mind?

CJ: In 1974 I actually opened a yarn store in San Francisco called the Woolly Mammoth. I owned it just a couple of years, then I got involved in politics and that was it; I had a passion for the causes of the time. But back in the ’70s, knitting and crochet—especially crochet—were huge. In San Francisco even more so because we had the whole hippie influence. It wasn’t only knitting and crochet, it was embroidery, macramé, découpage and all kinds of things, which I equate to what’s happening now. It’s the second round, the renaissance. Because in the early ’80s, when I got back into the industry again, business was booming, but it was a different kind of booming—for most of the people who took up knitting then, it was just a hobby. Then they went on to tennis.

YMN: It’s a real grass-roots movement now, with a lot of young people who didn’t learn from their mothers.

CJ: Exactly. I think some of them may have learned from a grandmother after it skipped a generation. For the first time, we women were able to have careers and had children later; we didn’t do the needlework stuff. And you can see that in the way society portrays needlework. It’s always old ladies who are knitting on commercials, even though on TV they now have younger people and even men knitting all the time. So it’s changing, but for a lot of years it certainly was a lot of the little-old-lady stuff. But I think the younger generation is so wonderful, creative and fun. They’re really embracing needlework and crafts and working together in a way that completely reminds me of the ’70s.

I remember when my kids were in nursery school and all the moms would get together: Somebody would be quilting, somebody knitting, like it is now, more of a sense of community. And I was never sure if that was San Francisco or if it happened across the country. I have a feeling that it was San Francisco—my kids went to a co-op nursery school.

I’m more than happy to help bring young people along. Sometimes I hear people grumbling that the Internet is taking over; to me, it’s wonderful. I have to say I don’t understand it as much as I would like to. It isn’t second nature to me. That’s something that genetically will change.

YMN: Speaking of embracing change, you’re growing into your role as producer of Knit & Crochet Today. That’s new to you?

CJ: Completely new. It fell into my lap a year and a half ago and I was very intimidated about taking the offer, but I had great encouragement from the people around me—Trisha Malcolm, my husband Tom, and Rick Caron, who has absolute faith in me no matter what. “Sure, go ahead, run through that briar patch.”

YMN: In fact, you’re headed off on Sunday…

CJ: …to shoot 26 new episodes, to begin airing in September.

YMN: And Brett Bara, editor of Crochet Today magazine, is the new host.

CJ: Brett’s the host and we have a great group of experts: Kristin Nicholas, Maggie Pace, Robyn Chachula and Drew Emborsky.

YMN: Will you have other guest stars as well?

CJ: We filmed 26 field pieces, interviews all over the country with an amazing array of people: Debbie Macomber, Jess and Casey from Ravelry, James Coviello, Mari Lynn Patrick, Debbie Stoller. We have a how-to segment, then we show a field piece, followed by another how-to segment, and then we tie it all together. So with James Coviello, for example, we’ll show how to make two of his designs.

YMN: Tell us about your upcoming yarn line.

CJ: I worked with Coats & Clark to develop a DK-weight yarn for the Red Heart line. It’s called Designer Sport—28 contemporary colors, great yardage. It will be available in August and has already been picked up by Michaels and Jo-Ann stores.

YMN: You’re also Country Living magazine’s Web craft editor. I wonder if you see that as a trend, shelter magazines having more craft coverage.

CJ: Absolutely it’s a trend. I think a lot of them will be going into crafts; a lot of the shelter magazines post how-tos on their websites.

YMN: I guess we have Martha to thank for that.

CJ: And this younger generation. As they embrace their whole creative, crafty side it really does slip over into the shelter magazines. Now they’re working on those magazines; they’re editors at those magazines. I’m so excited by the energy in the young people.

YMN: How do you have time for everything that you’re doing?

CJ: I basically don’t. The last six months have been hell because I’ve had to work on the yarn line, the TV show, and my books. I have to say I love the whole TV end of it. It’s creative and fun, and it really is great to work with PBS, because we’re in some great big markets, where we get a lot of coverage.

YMN: You’ve done a lot to bridge the age-old gap between knitting and crochet, especially with your book Knitting Loves Crochet. Do you think it’s working or is there still resistance?

CJ: It’s working on some level. Knitters have always used crochet; they’ve just never wanted to admit it. And the stigma again falls by the wayside with the younger people. There are certain things in crochet that knitters can really embrace, and one of them is the granny square. Kristin Nicholas, who is, as we know, an incredible knitter, has become addicted to granny squares.

Also, the younger generation doesn’t see why the older generation categorizes. That’s very evident in politics—that’s why younger people embrace Obama, because they don’t see him as a black man whose name is Obama, whereas the older generation is very categorizing. One of the big plusses about the younger generation in all these crafts is that they don’t live in the narrow world of “I’m an embroiderer,” “I do needlepoint”; they want to embrace all of it. Which once again takes me to the hippie era, which is exactly what we all did.

YMN: Did you learn during that era?

CJ: I learned to knit from a babysitter because I was an obnoxious child, the youngest of my sisters; they were really sweet and would sit and read while I’d be bouncing off the walls. She taught me to knit gratefully, because she figured I needed to channel my energy. And I absolutely loved it. So all through high school I knit. Then later, when my kids were little, I taught myself to crochet. That’s why I never show anyone the way I crochet, because I don’t crochet like anyone else.

YMN: So you did start out making baby sweaters for your kids?

CJ: Making wild sweaters.

YMN: And you stuck with the babies’ and kids’ knitwear.

CJ: That’s often what I feel like doing because I can be so much more colorful, and to me it’s all about the color. And the projects are fast and so cute. That’s why when I had the idea for my first book, Candy Tots, I said to my publisher Trisha, “I know that crochet can look better.” We were using colors and were a little ahead of the curve with it, as it happens.

YMN: Looking back over your career, what are you most proud of?

CJ: That’s a hard question, because I’ve been incredibly proud of every milestone—my first design in Vogue Knitting, my first book, my first TV show. What I’m most excited about is being able to bridge all these generations and last so long.

YMN: Do you think you’ll ever retire?

CJ: No. I’ll never give up being creative because I basically can’t. It’s always there, whirling in my brain.

YMN: I’ve heard you refer to that place you go to as CandiLand. What’s the perfect day in CandiLand?

CJ: Well, I go there so often… It’s basically because I do have this wandering, creative mind. For me CandiLand is this zone where people can be around me talking and doing things and I don’t hear anything. It’s just completely creative and a place where I can play, and that’s where I really love to be—on my deck, in Sebastopol, in CandiLand.