About
Victoria Marchant is a radically inclusive professional knitwear designer. Her patterns are thoughtfully designed and meticulously written from her home on the Essex/Suffolk border, where she lives with her husband and daughter.
Background
With a degree in Information Technology, Victoria originally worked as a software engineer in the investment banking sector.
Specialising in databases, she flourished as both a technical and team lead. An advocate for meticulous documentation, her experience writing unambiguous procedural instructions set her up well for writing knitting patterns.
After her daughter came along and Victoria discovered that both she and her daughter were autistic, some changes were in order. Wanting to always be available for her daughter but needing the mental stimulation and challenge of a career, Victoria turned to knitwear design and embraced the fusion of technical and creative.
5 Quick Facts about Victoria
- She is an enormous fan of music, drawing inspiration from it regularly and using it as a mood regulating tool. Follow on Spotify
- Her favourite project bag is an enormous tan leather hobo bag with brass snaps.
- She loves a jigsaw, escape room, quiz, or any other kind of puzzle. Also, spreadsheets.
- As a teenager she appeared in Mizz magazine under the heading “The Demon Decorator” because her bedroom was decorated like an ancient Egyptian tomb.
- These days she lives in a former coach house and her decorating is far more tasteful!
Ethos & Approach
Having experienced exclusion and discrimination both for being fat and for being autistic, Victoria is a passionate advocate for inclusivity and is staunchly anti-discrimination of any kind.
Inclusivity is baked into everything she does. Size inclusivity in particular is a key part of every design, and not just the grading: most patterns come with instructions for modifications, and her innovative mix and match body and sleeve sizing approach to garments accommodates those with larger arms without excluding those without.
Victoria’s patterns are carefully written to eliminate ambiguity and include everything the knitter needs to know without being overwhelming or obfuscating the key points that an experienced knitter needs to see. Garment patterns come with a free preview document that tells you everything you need to know about sizing, fit, swatching, and yarn, so you can do all your planning before you commit.
Every pattern is checked for colour blind friendliness and also comes in a second format, which is laid out specifically to accommodate the needs of knitters with low vision or who use screen readers.
Industry Experience
Victoria’s work has been published several times in Knit Now magazine.
She has also been featured in a number of interviews and panel discussions.
Due to the innovative approach she takes to sizing and pattern formatting, Victoria’s work is best suited to a digital format and continues to be primarily self-published.
Social Connections
For pattern support, please find Victoria’s email address on the last page of your pattern file.
To sign up for the latest news on the parts of Victoria’s work that interest you, subscribe to her Newsletter.
You can connect with Victoria socially on the following platforms:
