Meet Our New Creative Director

I’ve been a knitter, a shop girl at my LYS, the editor in chief of Vogue Knitting and Knit. 1 Magazine, and now, as Creative Director of Lion Brand and my motto has always been “Fun to Knit and Fun to Wear.” I didn’t start out in the hand-knitting industry. I studied writing and film at Oberlin and after college I worked as an assistant editor on feature films. I took time off from the grueling hours of independent film post-production to write my first screenplay, “Knit 1 Purl 2.” I was an avid knitter, making about a sweater a week, and got a part time job at my favorite LYS to keep me sane while I worked on the script. The late, great Melissa Matthay owned the shop and taught me how to design, combine yarns and create fun, easy garments for our clients. I remember the two of us squealing with joy as the new yarns arrived and we immediately would start swatching. We loved combining yarns to create different textures in simple but chic, over-sized silhouettes that looked good on all our customers: big, little, old, young.

Pictured: our new creative director, Adina, and her daughter.

Melanie Falick had just written the seminal book on knitting, Knitting in America, and The Yarn Company was the New York City stop of her book tour. Melanie and I became friends, I sent her a copy of my screenplay and she and I kept in touch.

Cut to a few years later. The screenplay was optioned but didn’t take off and the word around the knitting community was that Melanie Falick was hired as editor in chief of Interweave Knits. I sent her an email congratulating her and by the time I pressed the send button she had written me back begging me for help. I became assistant editor at the magazine, commuting one day a week to her home in Upstate New York.

One day I got a call from David Blumenthal asking me to come in to meet him. I had met him a few times as a volunteer on the Knit Outs and had no idea why he wanted to see me. It turned out he was looking for a personal assistant and Lily Chin had recommended me. I politely, well not that politely, declined saying “I’m not right for the job, I’m disorganized and rude (well a tad sassy).” He called me the next day and said he admired my creativity and knitting expertise and I worked as design director at Lion Brand from 1999 to 2002. Back then the Design Department consisted of two people. Now we have a bustling floor of 10 associates and several freelancers.

I always had a dream of opening my own yarn shop. A woman approached me to help her open a shop so I left sadly Lion Brand. After a year doing that, I worked freelance writing couple of books for Lion Brand and became a stylist for Vogue Knitting. I eventually became Editor in Chief of Vogue Knitting and Knit.1, a custom publication using only Lion Brand yarns. It was there that I was truly able to put my film-making background into practice and combine it with yarn expertise: using pictures to tell a story.

Now I’m back at my first professional home, Lion Brand and it’s great to be back. The company has grown so much since I worked here over ten years ago and I am so excited at the creative possibilities that lay ahead.

I hope you enjoy the new catalog. We tried something a little different this time, rather than organizing the projects by yarn we created fashion stories that transport you on a bit of a stylistic journey. The projects are, I hope “Fun to Make and Fun to Wear.” Please go to Facebook and let us know what you think of the new catalog.

Knit Modern Miters Afghan	Knit Paintbox Afghan	Crochet Garden Patch Granny Square Afghan
Crochet Little Boy Blue Blanket	Crochet Country Cute Cardi	Top Down Crochet Jacket