About Nest Creative Works
Hi, I’m Kat Rieckel — knitwear designer, art historian, textile artist, maker, and digital marketer. I launched this brand to share my original patterns, textile art and offer affordable digital marketing services to small businesses, educational organizations and artisans.
I’m a content strategist with six years of experience working for an SEO agency. Before that I worked for a content marketing firm and an international e-commerce company.
While I worked with many different clients ranging from small businesses and e-commerce brands to large enterprises, my favorite projects involved purpose-driven, educational or creative industries.
Interested in working together? Contact me today.
Nest Creative Works (formerly WildernestKnits) is where I explore slow, intentional making. I’ve been knitting since childhood and designing patterns since 2017. I believe in the magic of making your own clothes — shaping each stitch and telling a story through fiber. Originally from Czechia, I now live in New York for almost a decade. My love of natural textures is deeply influenced by time spent on my family’s sheep farm. I work mostly with rustic, natural yarns.
Notable collaborations
In 2019 my sheep coaster pattern was published in a book Make It In a Day: Stylish Coasters by Annie’s Publishing. You can purchase the inidividual pattern in my Ravelry store.
In 2020, my pattern Lady of the Lake shawl was published in By Hand magazine, Lookbook N. 14. Thanks to this collaboration I met Mary J. Packer, who owns a local fiber mill Battenkill Fibers where the beautiful Oysters and Pearls yarn I used for the design was spun. You can watch an interview about the design with both of us and the magazine’s editor Hannah Thiessen on the right.
In 2021, I worked with Battenkill Fibers again on a unique new collaboration that involved creating a brand new yarn in the mill and two new designs - Summer by the Lake Top and Summer by the River Tee. Both of these designs were created using the new yarn, Battenkill Fibers Shushan, which was developed by blending locally sourced wool together with linen to better fit the summer season.
In 2023, Quince & Co. supported my Seafoam Top knitting pattern and created yarn bundles for it.
In 2024, I developed my own sustainable yarn in collaboration with the Battenkill Fibers mill.
Instagram Live with Katerina C. Rieckel and MJ Packer (Oysters & Purls), moderated by Hannah Thiessen.
My life with sheep and goats
I live in the US., more specifically in Upstate New York, but I'm originally from the Czech Republic.
I love spinning yarn just as much as knitting, although for slightly different reasons. Spinning yarn can be very zen and calming, I feel like I don’t need to concentrate as much. I was taught how knit and spin by my amazing mom, who remains to be my biggest inspiration. She is a very talented weaver and most of the time she uses her own yarn spun from wool from her own sheep.
Since I come from a small sheep and goat farm, I am very familiar with the whole process of preparing fiber for spinning. My parents would shear wool from the sheep when it’s time, then my mom would wash it and dry it. Then she would clean and card it to perfection. After that, we would often look for natural materials in the surrounding woods and meadows that we could use to naturally hand-dye the wool, that we would later spin into our own custom yarn.
Using natural yarn with a lot of character
My experience with living on a small sheep farm has influenced my view on fiber arts. I prefer using natural yarns that are locally sourced or European yarns I fell in love with back when I lived there. I love yarns with a lot of character.
Do you feel the same way and would like to collaborate with me on a project?
Don’t hesitate to contact me at nestcreativeworks@gmail.com.