Meet Kim McBrien Evans: Fiber Artist, Knitter, and Instructor

Kim McBrien Evans has been a textile person her entire life. “I learned to knit when I was four,” she says. “I’ve always been around textile arts.”

Above: Image courtesy of Kim McBrien Evans

She lives and works about three hours north of Toronto in the middle of the woods. “I tell people to fly to Toronto, drive north, and turn left at the moose,” she jokes. Kim creates her knitwear patterns, runs her yarn company Indigodragonfly, and prepares her classes from there.

Kim McBrien Evans’ Design Career

Kim designed her first pattern in 2007. “Designing happened by accident. I think what happened with me is what happens with a lot of independent knitwear designers. I decided I didn’t want a project exactly like the pattern. I wanted it to be different. So, I’ve always modified patterns. And then eventually I knew enough to start from scratch and do it on my own,” she explains.

“What I love most about designing, is being able to exactly create the clothing I want to wear,” she says. “In my designs, I think about the bodies who are going to wear them. I think about all the things we’ve been told we can’t wear—horizontal lines, lots of texture on the front of the body—and I try to think of how I can shift things slightly so that they work with more body types. I try to design garments that are asymmetrical and a little unbalanced because I think our bodies are naturally unbalanced and having that asymmetry helps balance it all out.”

Related: Make Better Sweaters with Kim McBrien Evans

The Journey to Style

Kim is amazing at creating looks and outfits with her designs. She explains it took her a long time to get to that place, “It wasn’t just automatically knowing which sweaters were going to look good on me, which shapes were going to look good on my body, and which color patterns I would be able to wear.” Instead, it was a process of learning and making mistakes. It was a process of finding what pieces of clothing, what colors, and what textures feel most comfortable to her.

“I wish people knew more about that journey,” she says. “What they see in the classroom took a long time to learn. And they can learn it too. They just have to keep trying. They have to keep making mistakes. And eventually finding what their own comfort is. That is what your own personal style is—it’s what you’re comfortable in.”

Kim’s latest class explores circular yoke sweaters that fit every body type. She explains, “I’ve spent most of my life having to adapt clothes to fit my body. The one sweater I’ve always steered away from is the circular yoke because I thought they weren’t for my body type. After enough people asked me how they can modify them, I decided 2022 was going to be the year I would figure it out.”

What’s Next for Kim

Kim is currently working on her next few designs inspired by the show Making the Cut. In these upcoming designs, she will offer the design in two versions—one that is simple and the other that is more adventurous. Knitters will be able to pick and choose elements of both and crosspollinate finished garments.

In February 2023, she will be teaching an Interweave @ Home workshop on fit for circular yoke designs, and we hope you’ll join us! We can’t wait to learn from her along with you!

You can learn more about Kim’s classes, designs, and yarn company on her website Indigodragonfly.

Tamara Moots has more than 130 patterns available through Ravelry, Tallgrass Knitting (her Etsy shop), Interweave, yarn companies, magazines, and books. When she’s not designing, knitting or writing, she raises two teens and travels whenever she can manage. Find out more about what she’s up to on her Instagram or her website.