The Crafty Samoyed – Knits, describes in stories and photos activities enjoyed by Samoyed dogs and their owners today. The author then uses her creative ability to illustrate those events as charted intarsia knitting patterns. The designs portray Samoyeds in breed, obedience, agility, herding, sledding and more. Included are directions for many sweaters and accessories on which knitters work these designs. She even provides practical advice on using dog hair in the knitting. Gaffney claims readers "don't even need to know how to knit" to use the over 25 different patterns in the book, since directions are given for working the designs using duplicate stitch onto readymade sweaters.
Peggy Gaffney has written nine knitting books designed to delight pet lovers, especially those with dogs. She has a talent for capturing the look of each animal in her unique 'portrait knits' that are almost lifelike in their detail. Peggy has spent most of her life pursuing her favorite hobbies which are knitting and showing her purebred Samoyed dogs. Her designs reflect her love for animals.
The world of 'picture knitting' is one which Peggy, who majored in English but minored in Art, decided would allow her to paint animal portraits but instead of using paint, she'd work each design in stitches, with needles and yarn. This Intarsia technique, gives a freedom for detail that is not possible in other forms of knitting. Whether the design is worked in a pillow, sweater, stocking or hat, she gives the knitter a chance to show off their favorite pet. Kanine Knits has published not only the collection of Crafty Knits books but also individual pet portrait patterns which are available through their website.
Peggy's skills didn't happen overnight. She spent more than ten years as a custom knitting designer creating one-or-a-kind sweaters and accessories for owners of some of the top dogs in the country. Having been a writer in many genre throughout her life, the idea of translating these designs into book form was a natural choice.
Her dog knitting books each focus on taking a single breed per book and creating designs of that breed in action. She realized that this wouldn't work with cats. Though they might enjoy agility, cats don't do 'obedience.' So after discussing the approach with a number of fanciers, she decided to take a dozen breeds and focus on what makes each of them unique. Each breed gets its own design accompanied by an object that figures in the cat's history. The story that explains how each breed came to be is included along with more than 50 photos of cats taken by the author as well as submitted by fancier around the country.
With The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits, she dealt with the two well known camelids and discussed the history, what they do and of course talked about the fleece which is of so much importance not only with the breeders but with knitters craving luxury fibers. The book is filled with photos of these wonderful creatures in action.
The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits is published by Kanine Knits which is also the publisher of The Crafty Cat Knits and the Crafty Dog Knits series which includes book about: Samoyeds, Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, Bernese Mt Dogs, Newfoundlands, Welsh Corgis and Poodles.
Peggy Gaffney is now hard at work on several new books to delight the creative knitter who wants to create a striking portrait of a much loved pet.
