my background

I'm just getting started out in knitwear design, and I have much to learn, but there is joy in the learning process and I hope you'll follow along as I start designing beautiful knitted things. I learned how to knit (and crochet!) when I was a girl, but only started knitting steadily again about 6 or 7 years ago. I give special thanks to Frenchie of Aroha Knits and her SWATCH Studio Circle for helping me come into this field. Without her generosity and scholarship support, I feel like I wouldn't have been able to actualize this desire to design as quickly as I have.

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I am a Filipino-American (she/her). I was born in the Philippines and moved to Virginia when I was 16. "Kalinaw" is a Filipino word that means "serenity" or "tranquility." I believe in having a thoughtful relationship with the things that I own and use. There’s something meditative in the nature of making a tangible object—in using what you make and recalling the act of creating what you’ve made. It’s a mode of thinking and being that I believe inhabits all of my creative endeavors.

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I take some inspiration in my designs from both my cultural heritage and my adoptive country. Being Filipino is not the only thing that defines my work though. I do choose to highlight it in some of my designs because I believe in the beauty of richness of one's heritage. I choose to draw from it to help normalize what society defines as beautiful. Apart from being Filipino, apart from being a knitter, I am first human. I am a mother, a partner, a daughter and a sister. I am a reader and a writer, a watcher of films. I love being at home best of all, with my yarn stash, my snacks and my books, but I love the outdoors too though, the mountains, the sea (though I do not know how to swim!). I am a bit of a perfectionist and I love trying to make people I love happy (I am an Enneagram 2, for those of you out there that know of it). I'm incredibly shy at times but really love collaborating with others.

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I also have over 15 years of professional corporate experience in graphic design, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia (poetry). You can check out my professional design and writing website here.

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I also love collaboration! Send me a message about working with me on knit pattern designing, illustration and other creative ventures!