Toe Up: Chrissy Gardiner

Gardiner Yarn Works is the creative outlet for former software architect and company founder Chrissy Gardiner. After learning to knit from her grandmother at age 10, Chrissy dabbled in the fiber arts (including knitting, crocheting, cross-stitch and needlepoint) for years before discovering her local yarn shop and the lovely luxury yarns therein. Knitting became her new obsession after her kids were born, she left the corporate world for good and, thanks to her LYS, discovered that wool is not always scratchy. Chrissy's designs can be found in many past issues of Interweave Knits as well as various pattern compilation books, knitting pattern websites, sock clubs and yarn company pattern lines (click here for a more detailed listing of her designs published by others). She published her first book, Toe-Up! Patterns and Worksheets to Whip Your Sock Knitting Into Shape, in the summer of 2009. She is a wholesale member of The National Needlearts Association and is Membership Services Chair for The Association of Knitwear Designers. She keeps her skills sharp and gets feedback from all sorts of knitters while teaching at various shops around the country. Chrissy lives with her husband, Bill, and their two children in a Craftsman-style bungalow in urban Portland, Oregon. She also tends to a small menagerie including three cats, two rabbits (Bella and Cocoa Puff, the official Gardiner Yarn Works office bunnies) and three chickens. Her biggest challenge these days, besides making sure her printer doesn't run out of ink, is keeping her children from running around the house with her working yarn.