Soft Hours Studio is a New York–based creative knitting studio founded by knitwear designers and creative collaborators: Kejia Yan (Evelyn), and Chang Liu (Emmy).
Their story began in Shanghai shortly after the pandemic in 2021, when Kejia was studying at a local knitting studio while Chang worked there as a teaching assistant. Drawn together by a shared fascination with textiles, knitting machines, and handmade processes, the two quickly formed a creative partnership rooted in both technical curiosity and a love for slower forms of making.
Later that year, Chang moved to New York to pursue her MFA in Fashion Design and Society at Parsons School of Design, while Kejia was completing her final year in Parsons’ Fashion Design BFA program. Reuniting in New York, a city filled with fashion and creativity, yet surprisingly lacking spaces dedicated to machine knitting, they began imagining what a different kind of studio could look like.
What truly shaped Soft Hours Studio was teaching. Through introducing machine knitting to friends, artists, designers, and curious beginners, both realized how many people were searching for more tactile, hands-on creative experiences in contrast to the speed of everyday life. For Kejia, teaching became a way to build community through craft and emotional connection. For Chang, it revealed the vast creative potential of machine knitting within contemporary fashion and textile design.
Located in Manhattan’s Garment District, Soft Hours Studio exists as both a working knit studio and an open creative environment dedicated to machine knitting, textile exploration, and collaborative learning. The studio approaches knitting not only as a technical skill, but as an evolving creative language that connects fashion, art, craft, and everyday life.
After graduating, Chang continued building her career within knitwear technical design and product development, working across fashion brands, knit studios, and consulting projects in New York. Her practice brings precision, structure, and deep technical knowledge into the studio’s foundation.
Kejia’s work moves between fashion, craft, and contemporary art, exploring themes of emotional healing, slow living, intimacy, and collective memory through knitwear and material experimentation. She envisions Soft Hours Studio as a platform for workshops, exhibitions, collaborations, and mindful community-building through making.
Together, they hope Soft Hours Studio can encourage people to rediscover the joy of making things slowly — while exploring the creativity, labor value, and human connection behind textiles and fashion today.
Hi! We Are Soft Hours Studio
Our Founder
Chang Liu
is a knitwear-focused technical designer with an MFA in Fashion Design and Society from Parsons and a BE in Textile Engineering from Donghua University. She currently works as an Associate Technical Designer specializing in knits at French Connection, where she creates tech packs, analyzes fit and construction, and supports product development.
Previously, she served as a Knitwear Designer at a knitwear company in New York, programming fully fashioned knits using SDS-One Apex, and worked as a consulting fashion designer developing both knit and woven collections. While managing a knit studio in Shanghai, she led design projects for emerging and established brands, while mentoring interns and driving studio profitability.
Skilled in Shima Seiki 3D knitting software, CAD, and hands-on techniques, Chang translates creative visions into precise, executable languages. She is the guardian of “precision”—ensuring that every thread finds its place.
Kejia Yan
is a New York based knitwear designer and creative practitioner. She holds a BFA in Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design and an MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University. Her practice spans fashion, craft, and contemporary art, exploring the relationships between the body, emotional healing, and slow-living aesthetics in today’s fast-paced society.
Working primarily with knitwear, Kejia investigates materiality, structure, and narrative, viewing handcraft as a way to reconnect personal experience with collective memory. Her work embraces softness, intimacy, and everyday rituals, with a focus on female perspectives.
She thought of Soft Hours Studio as a creative platform for workshops and collaborations, fostering a mindful community where making becomes a form of reflection, connection, and gentle resistance to fast consumption.
