The People of Twisted

Emily Williams
Emily grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University, which is located in the southern section of the state hysterically known as “Kentuckiana.” College at Stanford University introduced Emily to the west coast and it stuck. Emily has two very spoiled French Bulldogs, Carat and Nugget, both of whom are quite tolerant of her crafting addiction. Other than knitting, sewing, and the like, Emily enjoys backpacking and playing with technology (habits acquired from her dad) as well as growing orchids and imparting common sense on the unsuspecting masses (habits totally the fault of her mom). Her flickr id is emilyshmemily and Ravelry name is also emilyshmemily.

Shannon Squire
Shannon grew up in the Midwest – Bedford, Ohio. After college at Ohio University, she roamed the country as a promotions and marketing coordinator and landed in Portland. Shannon lives in wedded bliss with her adorable and talented husband Stefan and their gorgeous and talented baby daughter Hazel. Her flickr id is shannonsq and Ravelry name is shannon.

Alex
Alex is a 20-something, college-hopping psych/art student with not-so-secret yarn related ambitions that make her dear mother nervous. She enjoys knitting, spinning, dyeing, and picture-taking, all of which can be seen at presentsknits.blogspot.com.


Alma
Alma is a Montana native who spent most of her life in Ohio and then returned to her home state in 2001. Now she’s spending some time in Oregon working for her daughter and spending lots of time with her newest grandbaby.


Sivia
Sivia loves knitting and all fibrey pursuits, and is internationally known for her gorgeous, popular, often beaded designs. As well as working at Twisted, she also teaches many classes here. Other than knitting and spinning, her favorite activities are reading, history, old music and films from the 40s, messing around with her camera, and plonking on the ukulele, not necessarily in that order. See her designs at: siviaharding.com


Star
When Star is not designing, she’s dreaming about designing. She’s also knitting, spinning, dyeing fiber, teaching, cycling, writing, doodling, walking, doing crossword puzzles, drinking tea, eating chocolate, stretching, contemplating the cruelty of existence, and exploring the great Pacific Northwest. For adventures in knitting, spinning and other odds and ends, visit: keeponknittinginthefreeworld.blogspot.com


Vivian
Vivian knits, spins, photographs, plays in the dirt and cooks endless amounts of food with her son, her love, and her brother in a house by a big cottonwood tree in SE Portland. You can witness her exploits (or at least the daily growth of her son) at viagael.blogspot.com where she tries to make her life look glamorous, idyllic, full of good lighting, and free of stray fibers.


Wil
Wil is a knitting obsessed Dutch/Zimbabwean/Canadian transplant now loving the NW. She has found that knitting has been a lifesaver through many years of kids’ soccer and gymnastics, and is trying to figure out how to best knit on the back of a tandem. She shares life with her husband Kevin (who understands that “one more row” never means that), her teen daughters, and her neurotic, but lovable, dogs Buddy and Jack.

Chrissy
After learning to knit from her grandmother at age 10, Chrissy dabbled in the fiber arts (including knitting, crocheting, cross-stitch and needlepoint) for years before becoming obsessed after her kids were born and starting at Gardiner Yarn Works. Chrissy’s designs can be found in many past issues of Interweave Knits as well as various pattern compilation books, knitting pattern websites, sock clubs and yarn company pattern lines (click here for a more detailed listing of her designs published by others). She is a wholesale member of The National Needlearts Association and is on the board of The Association of Knitwear Designers. She keeps her skills sharp and gets feedback from all sorts of knitters while teaching at various shops around Portland, OR. Her biggest challenge these days, besides making sure her printer doesn’t run out of ink, is keeping her children from running around the house with her working ball of yarn.


Christine
Christine is a feisty libra who enjoys sailing, eating, and the occasional cozy wood fire. She endeavors to put humor into all her knitting and loves making toilet roll cozies for everyone; even if they don’t want them and especially if they think them tacky. She recently acquired some glow in the dark yarn and may never turn the lights on again. While not really a narcissist Christine enjoys writing short bios like this one immensely.


Dawn
Dawn has been knitting off and on for over 40 years. Self taught from books in the early days, with occasional help from her great aunt and grandmothers, she likes to try new techniques and figure out design challenges. Dawn earned the title of Master Knitter from the Knitting Guild Association in the fall of 2006. In 2007 Dawn and her sister, Dianne, founded at Fiber Rhythm Craft & Design, a business which sells hand and machine knitting patterns as well as woven items and Silk City Fiber’s Bambu 7 and 12 yarns online. Dawn currently works as a database specialist for IBM and will celebrate her 25th year with the company in November 2009.


Elaine
Elaine has been knitting seriously since 2001, and teaching since 2003. She loves socks, complicated stitchwork and lace. She also crochets and works with beads. Elaine enjoys helping people to learn to stretch their needlework skills, and loves it when people master things they thought they’d never do.


Julie
Hi! I’m Julie Nelligan. I teach Learn to Knit at Twisted. I’ve been knitting since I was a child—my mother taught me how to knit cotton dishrags. Of course, once she taught me the basics, I was off and running. My next project was a cable sweater. My favorite projects involve either cables or lace. I knit sweaters, socks, scarves, mittens, hats, and shawls.


Karen
Karen has been knitting for about 4 years. She discovered felting a short time after that, and then needle felting, and loves being able to paint with fiber! She is the proud wife of a great man and the proud Mommy of beautiful 11 year old twins. She just wishes there were more hours in the day to craft!


Karie
I was infected with the knitting bug after living in Chile in 2004 and saw amazing yarn spun by indigenous women (I still can’t believe I had never entertained my fiber bug before this!) and a friend introduced me to the joys of leg warmers. A passion was born when the first thing I ever knit was a pair of leg warmers on double pointed needles in the round. Nothing like running before you can walk! Even though I struggled with 5 needles at once, I trucked along and was hooked. Boy do I hate double pointed needles and was overjoyed to discover the magic loop.
I always have at least 4 to 6 projects working at once. Socks, a sweater or other such large item and several small projects. I like the ability to circulate through mindless and soothing stockinette and lace at any given moment. Every project teaches me something new about knitting and I always discover a tid bit about myself that has been lurking in the depths of my soul.
I have been beading for at least 20 years, making earrings, necklaces and bracelets with semi-precious stones. I took this gift to another skill while living in Chile. I found a silver smithing class taught by a local Mapuche indian. He taught us how to manipulate silver with fire, saws and other such applications. I was hooked! My hope is to expand on my metal smithing skills and combine it with my recent discovery, Art Clay.
I am working on altering the time space continuum so I can have enough time for all my hobbies!


Lee
Lee is a maker of things, doer of stuff, the woman behind leethal knit designs, the do stuff! leethal blog, and everything else on at leethal.net. She spends most of her time designing knit accessories and making yarn (both spinning and dyeing recycled wool), but also does tons of other crafty activities like print-making, sewing, embroidery, beading, and photographing it all! Lee started knitting in college, improvising from the beginning, always trying to find interesting construction methods, attempting to make things that she’d never seen instead of following patterns. She love challenging design concepts, quick projects, and colorful yarn!


Michele
Michele has been knitting since her favorite aunt taught her when she was 16, but became a knit-fiend when she joined a knitting group, Ravelry and started knit-blogging in the past few years. She is particularly fond of texture (cables, lace, and entrelac) and loves teaching people how to be the boss of their knitting! You can view her blog at PDXKnitterati.


Michelle
Michelle is extremely shy. She is not married and has no children. She is not famous and has no plans to be. She is a reasonably good knitter, but less great at self-promotion. You can view her blog at Another Knitting Blog.


Parna
Parna taught herself to knit and crochet when she was about 7 years old. Since then, she has also dabbled in a variety of other arts and crafts including sewing, beading, cross-stitch, stained glass, spinning, and others. She has received two levels of teaching certification from the Craft Yarn Council of America. Parna loves to knit sweaters and buy sock yarn. When she’s not knitting, Parna is a lawyer. Her legal practice includes advice, transactional, and litigation work in intellectual property (e.g. trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets), all aspects of internet-related law, and general commercial litigation. Parna’s other hobbies include making stitch markers, playing goalie on the most fabulous women’s soccer team on earth, and obsessing over Supernatural with Emily and Shannon. Her Ravelry name is myriadlane.