Drop Your Stitches Here

Indy graphic designer Elaine Madsen worked as a reporter not too long ago, in San Francisco on the venerable Lincoln Log at Abraham Lincoln High School. But hands-on arts were more appealing, and after graduating from Creative Studies at UCSB, Elaine cofounded Twenty-Four Blackbirds chocolate company — where she designed the packaging — and now has a knitting consultancy, where she fixes dropped stitches or advises on things like zippers, and holds knitting groups and classes. Her yarn-dyeing experiments with all-natural materials are yielding interesting results: “Eucalyptus gives a bright orange color,” she said, “and jack-o’-lantern mushrooms can be a deep purple or deep forest green depending on the metals you add to the mix.”