The creative force behind the An Caitín Beag brand, Marna brings her love of cats into everything she makes
Meet
KNITWEAR DESIGNER, artist and hand-dyer Marna Gilligan runs An Caitín Beag, the knitting brand best known for its cat-themed designs and accessories, and its elegant yet practical silver jewellery for knitters. Marna has published two volumes of her Choose Your Own Catsock Adventure pattern collections, and we’re delighted to feature the ‘Big Cat Cardigan’ design from her book Cat Knits in this month’s supplement. We caught up with Marna to find out about all the treats she has been creating for knitters lately.
We were excited to see teasers of your upcoming 2023 yarn advent calendars. Can you tell us a bit more about them? “This year’s advent calendars have a fairground theme, so I’m dyeing up a cheery bright rainbow of yarn for my woolly advents. If you prefer a moodier sort of yarn, I’m doing a very subtle moonlight rainbow on my silk/yak blend, Deep.
I’m designing a colourwork cardigan - the ‘Carousel Catdigan’ - as my big advent pattern, and a colourwork cat sock to help use up all the yarn leftovers. I’ll be bringing the fairground theme across to the stitchmarker calendar, too, and to all the little extras and the packaging.”
What other new products have you launched recently? “My favourite is pretty silly, and there’s a bit of a backstory. I have a little black cat called Atari Teenage Kitten (ATK for short). Last autumn she took a liking to an empty pizza box. I foolishly let her have it to sit on for a few days, but the novelty didn’t wear off. Instead, she got incredibly attached to it. She yowled if I went near it, and spurned my lap in favour of perching on it. I called it the True Pizza Box Love, and spent the winter stepping carefully around a disintegrating pizza box in the middle of the floor, and getting shouted at (in shouty-cat language) whenever I moved it - even to clean around it. Eventually the love faded and I managed to scoot it into the recycling.
“I’ve immortalised her love as a silly enamel pin. I asked people to send me pictures of their box-obsessed cats, and sketched those into stitchmarkers and stickers, and I’ve packaged them all up in a tiny pizza box. I’ve given ATK extra treats as a thank-you - but I also make sure that any pizza boxes are very quickly disposed of, now, in case she takes a liking to another.”
What products are proving most popular with your customers at the moment? “I updated some of my earliest pin designs recently. There’s a new version o
