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Melissa Female Vancouver, WA, United States: Share

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Pattern Feedback and Questions

Replied Aug 29

Have a question that doesn't fit into any of the other categories?

Replied Jun 16

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Location: Vancouver, WA

About Me:: As the Knit Picks Art Director, I design the ads, packaging, and other promotional materials and oversee the overall look of Knit Picks. I also help to choose new yarn colors and names, which is very fun and challenging.

I learned to knit three years ago from a "learn to knit" kit I got as a Christmas present, and I haven't put the needles down since. My favorite thing about knitting is the way it engages my brain. In every major project I knit I like to learn something new. Nothing pleases me more than to have to do algebra or draw diagrams before starting a project. I also like to play mad scientist in the kitchen with bare yarn and acid dyes. It's always a challenge to get a color to come out exactly as I envision it, and often it's more fun when it doesn't.

Website:: http://indigomouse.net

What's your Ravelry ID (if you have one)? (www.ravelry.com): Indigomouse

Melissa's Projects

Melissa's Blog

Lately it seems like all I've knit are baby gifts. Since we launched Comfy this Spring I've made two baby sweaters from it, and while I'm sick of baby sweaters, I must say that I still love the yarn! … Continue

Posted on September 22nd, 2008 at 8:58am — 3 Comments

Behind the scenes of a photoshoot

Last week I had a day out of the office shooting a sweater for an upcoming magazine ad. I love location shoots--they're a lot of hard work, but the results are worth it. Plus, it's nice to get out of the normal office routine. This shoot was especially fun because I was going for a bit of a retro look, and we had the perfect model and location to pull it off. The model, Jenny, is a software marketer by day and one of Angela's roller der… Continue

Posted on September 16th, 2008 at 9:51am — 3 Comments

Snowmen pattern now available

Have you seen the snowmen pattern that I mentioned back in July? It's up on our site free--in plenty of time for you to make holiday gifts or ornaments for your tree! The pattern is available here. I also wanted to men… Continue

Posted on September 9th, 2008 at 10:08am —

Excited about socks

Have you seen all the… Continue

Posted on August 14th, 2008 at 11:00am — 3 Comments

Christmas in July

Wow, it's been exactly a month since my last staff blog post--oops! Time flies when you're knitting snowmen. Yep, that's what I've been up to this July. We decided that we wanted a "mascot" of sorts to show up in our holiday catalogs and emails, and the next thing I knew I was knitting wee snowmen wit… Continue

Posted on July 23rd, 2008 at 3:28pm — 13 Comments

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At 8:33am on July 7th, 2008, TropicFlower said…: Thanks!

At 11:03am on July 6th, 2008, TropicFlower said…: Question - How hard would it be to make fingers on the Queen of Diamonds fingerless gloves? I'm almost through the cuff (worked on a few minutes here and there so my mom doesn't know) and it's going great.... Until I pointed out some fingerless gloves I *loved* and my mom was like, "Um, those are not very practical." Sooo.... Even though I love fingerless, and I think they look wonderful, I am determined to make a gift my mom will like, and I know she'll love the cuff and edging, but I think she'd want fingers.

How hard do you think that would be, and do you have any ideas?

(BTW, I LOVE this pattern, and bought extra to make *me* a pair when I finish mom's. :D)
Thanks,
Tropic

At 7:37pm on July 3rd, 2008, jamielynnecrissman said…: I can't remember whether I took time to thank you for pointing out the calculator (which lead me to find several others I could use, too -!!!) but thanks, Melissa -- those are wonderful, and will make my projects so much easier to plan.

At 5:54pm on July 1st, 2008, jamielynnecrissman said…: Thanks, Melissa -- actually, I haven't progressed to using actual patterns yet, or needing them -- I'm just doing simple scarves & small blankets in garter and stockinette. But I've come up with a way to vary the looks of those that you might like -- I use two different size needles, (just trading back & forth, as if they were a matched set --) and in garter stitch it ends up looking like crochet. So I get a pretty effect, without having to learn a complicated stitch pattern -- I'm not sure whether that makes me creative, or just lazy; but I like it, anyhow.

I've sort of decided that one row in these simplest stitches takes about six times the finished length of the row, as a rough guess -- does that sound right to you?

At 7:20pm on June 30th, 2008, jamielynnecrissman said…: Thanks, Melissa, for your reply about how to order the Imagination line -- I did find it, right after sending my query to you, so I felt like a dunce for missing it at first -! But I'm really enjoying your site, and looking forward to trying your yarns.

One thing I'm still struggling with is guage, especially as it relates to the total quantity of yarn I need for a project ... is there a calculator somewhere that will tell me (just as an example --) if I want to make a 6" by 4' scarf with a worsted weight yarn on size 11 needles how many yards I'd need -? Of course, I almost always complicate things by using two yarns together, like a Trellis with Bernat Satin in my latest project .... Anyhow, I'd really appreciate any guidance you can give me along those lines -- thanks!

At 5:15pm on March 20th, 2008, Greatdane n lace lover said…: Thank you!!! You should check out allaboutgreatdanes.com and then go to the forum. I just stumbled on this whole cool new cool knitpicks deal, Im glad i did! LOL

At 11:44am on March 20th, 2008, giraffe81840 said…: I clicked on your picture because it showed you as Online. WOW Melissa, it looks to me like you have a wonderful job. To be around yarn all the time must be Great.
Kathy