Let me introduce myself. My name is Peggy Gaffney and I am an author/designer who has created a new idea in the world of knitting with my Crafty Dog Knits book series for talented and crafty dog lovers through my publishing house Kanine Knits.

Taking a single breed with each book, I write about everything that makes that dog distinctive and then created a series of portraits of the dog in action as knitting charts to be worked into sweaters and accessories. Each book not only contains 25 charted designs but also 25 patterns for sweaters, hats, mittens, etc. into which the designs may be knit. Then to make the books more useful, I take a third of the book to write about the breed giving information about the activities that I have illustrated in the charts.

I am able to design these charts because I have over 40 years in the world of pure bred dogs showing Samoyeds. This gives me a good eye for what each breed should look like. Pair that with 15 years as a professional knitting designer of custom sweaters for owners of top winning dogs and I had the skills I needed to create this career.

I have written books and patterns for knitters who love their dogs and have six books in The Crafty Dog Knits series with the seventh about to be published. They cover the breeds Samoyed, Labrador Retriever, Golden Retriever, Bernese Mt. Dog, Newfoundland, Welsh Corgis and now Poodles. Many more are in the planning stages. I enjoy speaking about these books to knitting groups and there is a video of one of these talks on my website at www.kanineknits.com.

For those breeds that don’t yet have a book, I have designed more than 100 different single breed chart in my ‘Portraits of Dogs in Knitting’ pattern series which I sell individually. All are available from publisher Kanine Knits. Coming soon The Crafty Cat Knits.