Annie Larson had never knit anything when she bought her 1980s sweater-creating contraption in January of 2009. “It looks intimidating and cumbersome, but it’s doing this activity with this uniformity and consistency that’s difficult for humans to achieve,” says the Wisconsin native who moved to Minneapolis for college and stayed for work. “I was really fascinated by it. While it does seem intimidating in certain ways, in others it’s pretty explanatory—it makes sense how it works. It’s not a machine that’s full of mystery. Once I started, I didn’t want to stop. I just wanted to learn everything so fast.” And so she did. Within a matter of months, the 27-year-old quit her job at Target HQ where she had worked on design for the juniors Xhilaration line and men’s sweaters—and where she first developed an interest in knits. Turning to work on her label ALL Knitwear full-time, she quickly developed a light-hearted but bold aesthetic—“optimistic,” as she puts it—using all cotton yarns. “It’s really different from making clothing in a more traditional sense—you know, cutting out shapes from fabric. I’m really interested in the process of actually constructing. That’s what I do everyday. It’s fun for me,” she explains. allknitwear.com