Spring fever has reached record highs here at the Knit Picks office. Samples of the soft, yummy, new spring/summer yarns are finally here, and we’re all a twitter trying to get photos taken, catalogs printed, new ads designed, new patterns tested, and of course, before any of that can actually be completed, we have to swatch, swatch, swatch!

Being the most inexperienced knitter on staff, I’ve excused myself from swatch duty and appointed myself as head documentarian instead. That means I’ve been taking photos of all my frantically knitting co-workers. I’m sure they’ll look back fondly on this week and be thankful I took pictures once the mania dies down. If not, I hope the rest of you will at least appreciate the sneak peek into the inner workings of Knit Picks.

Christy has (almost) singlehandedly wound every ball …

Oh no! Knitting catastrophe!

Just kidding. I’m writing a two-at-a-time sock tutorial, and the test knitter just returned the samples. Inside that pile of treacherous circulars and Essential sock yarn are six sock stages, knit in duplicate, all ready for photography. <

It’s moving day at the KP office. Actually, what was moving day is dragging into more of a moving week or two. We’ve got a LOT of stuff.
“Now where in the world are they moving to?”, you might be asking yourself. That’s a fair enough question. And it’s kind of hard to explain. See, this used to be Tina’s office downstairs,

but now she’s in this office upstairs.

And all of KP used to be downstairs right here,

but now they’re moving upstairs into this room,

and almost everyone who was in that room is moving to this room,

except for the few random individuals who belong to no specific department and are being peppered liberally throughout the building where ever space allows.
I think it’s …

Wow, the office move is on Tuesday, but we’re already almost done! It’s amazing what you can do when you all work as a team. It’s also amazing what you discover lurking in some mystery box – and how these random things can be a little spot of inspiration.
As a garment designer, I’ve always got an eye on fashions and trends (whether good or bad!) and after a while, it kind of blends in together. It can get to be difficult to glean inspiration out of something you’ve seen a hundred times! But, going through all of our yarns, notions and random bits and bobs of office accumulation, I found some real gems of inspiration.
One was the project yarn wall. When you see our yarn in a catalog or online, it’s arranged in some order – often in rainbow order. It’s easy to gravitate toward colors you like that way, …

I love watching NASCAR races. I was trying to remember how this came to be, and I think it stems from going with my family to Champ car qualifying days at Portland International Raceway when we could get free passes. My Dad and brother absolutely loved going, and Mom and I would tag along and sit under the makeshift lean-to awning and read – back when they would let you camp out for the day on the grassy banks around the track. There’s something about the sound and the excitement and unpredictability. What I like even better about stock car racing is that they smash into each other and into the walls and yet, many times, THEY STILL KEEP GOING, albeit with sheet metal flapping. Repairs are attempted with baseball bats and …

I’ve always wanted a pair of those little Mary Jane slippers, the kind they sell at Target around Christmas time with the little rubbery nubbins on the bottom. The problem is I have small feet. I wear size 5 ½ in womens, size 3 in kids, size 4 in men’s. Small. All those cute Target slippers slide right off my cold little feet.
So now that I’ve learned to knit, I was browsing Ravelry for a new project so that I could expand my repertoire beyond scarves and wristlets, and I found a pattern that shall remain anonymous for very easy, beginner Mary Jane slippers. Perfect! I could make them just my size. And I already had the perfect buttons picked out.
I cast on my 30 stitches of Cadena in Coal and started garter stitching. As I began knitting, I had the creeping suspicion that these were going to be much …

This is Spencer, our intrepid photographer. He’s getting all his lights set up in my kitchen so we can photograph a special dyeing tutorial for our June catalog. We were very fortunate to have an overcast day so we didn’t have to deal with bright sunlight coming in the kitchen window.

This is Alison, who has outlined every photo we need to take to go with the step-by-step instructions she’s written. The only free space in the whole kitchen for her to take notes was between the burners (don’t worry – they weren’t on at this point!) on the stove.

Hard at work. Honestly, tutorial photography days are really fun! What I like best is the “behind the scenes” look of all the piles of supplies and things that are just outside the photos …