Hi! I’m Allison, one of the newest additions to the Knit Picks team!

I joined the Knit Picks team with the knitting experience equal to half of a busted washcloth that I never completed and lost at some point (don’t worry – I bring other skills to the team). I’ve always wanted to master knitting, but I wasn’t really sure where to start and the memory of my busted washcloth was a reminder of what I considered a failure to learn.

Then one day I suddenly found myself accepting a job with the Knit Picks family, and this amazing team of supportive knitters made me realize that the silly excuses were just silly and I now had every reason to learn to knit.

With the encouragement of our own Stacey Winklepleck and Daniel Kennon, I grabbed some of our extra Wool of the Andes Worsted Yarn from the warehouse bins, was gifted The Options Interchangeable Caspian Circular Knitting Needle Set as a starting set, and was told to just knit something because your first project is going to be junk  (I swear it was encouraging). So I picked a yarn color I liked out of the extras bins, held all of the needle gage options in my hand to see what I liked best, and watch some tutorials from our own website.

That “scarf” turned into a hot mess of a cat blanket, but the cat likes it and by the end of the ball of yarn I had found my knit rhythm and style (continental).

(In case you’re curious, Gus is a Maine Coon Cat mixed with an unknown breed. He is also fat and often grumpy.)

The fact that I completed a project gave me the fire I needed to start my real first scarf, which is accidentally inspired by the Cascadia Doug Flag. My husband happened to notice that the colors I selected from the extras bin were just the colors I would need to knit a Cascadia Flag scarf and so with this inspiration, a single ball of Wool of the Andes Worsted Yarn in Lake Ice Heather, one in Solstice Heather, and a single ball of Swish Worsted Rainforest Heather turned into a cozy wool scarf for my husband, made with love.

(This is the flag used for inspiration!)

My scarf is far from perfect, but if I had made a perfect scarf the first time, my cat wouldn’t have his favorite blanket to snuggle. My point? If you’re new to knitting and you haven’t tried because you don’t know where to start; just knit! The first round will not be perfect, but it’ll teach you a lot to make something better the next time!