Peggy Gaffney television interview

 

Peggy Gaffney talks about her many knitting books and patterns created especially for dog lovers, cat lovers, and those who love alpacas & llamas.

From Martha to Me - A Busy Month

Visiting Martha

This has been an especially busy month at Kanine Knits. To begin with, there was the annual Dreamers Into Doers event that is held annually by the wonderful people at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and sponsored by Deluxe. This year 80 female entrepreneurs (and one guy - a guest) came together in NYC to learn from the experts different methods of growing our businesses. The event also includes a chance to see the Martha Stewart Show and ask questions when it was over. 

For most of the participants this was their first chance to visit the home of the Martha Stewart media empire and ask questions of the people who make the magazines, television and online aspects of the business. We learned about creating product and marketing it. Many of those who attended were following in Martha's early career steps as party planners though there was a business diversity throughout those attending. For me it was fun to meet up with five other dreamers who first met at this conference three years ago and to see how far our business have come. The friendships and bonds that have been formed within this group are still going strong. 

Talks by visiting speakers ranged from Deluxe, to The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck developers, to Diane Winston from Score who stressed the many services that are available free to business owners through this arm of the Small Business Administration. 

Martha wasn't able to be at the meeting where she was scheduled because she was rushing off to meet her newest grandson who was born on the first day of the conference. The baby, a boy, was named Truman. We all shared in her joy. 

It was also a great chance for me to get together and catch up with my friend Hannah Milman who is the SVP Exec. Editorial Director for Holiday and Crafts at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Hannah is not only a wonderful person but a very talented and creative crafter. 

My TV Interview

This week I did my own thing on television. I was interviewed Jason Alster about my knitting books and patterns on the Meet The Author show. It was a lively half hour where I gave Jason (a non-knitter) insights into the world of knitting, yarn, books & patterns the reasons why I write about dogs, cats, llamas and alpacas. It was enjoyable since I love to talk about what I do. 

I am slowly (24 hr days are too short) getting more patterns with many new breeds up on the website, so be sure to check it often. 

Next month I will be having a booth showing my books, patterns and samples of what you can knit at the Connecticut Sheep, Wool & Fiber Festival on April 28th in Vernon, Connecticut. Come and visit plus you can see the animals and watch the sheepdogs work. 

Fiber Arts Friday

Today is a day to celebrate by showing off something you did in fiber. At Kanine Knits, it's all about knitting, designing and animals. Toward that end, I thought I'd show off one of my Kanine Knits designs of a Löwchen used on the back of this lovely sweater vest at the AKC/Eukanuba Dog Show several years ago. It shows what I stress in my work. That is to say, Pride in Breed.

Peggy Gaffney, designer

Happy New Year from Kanine Knits

 Happy New Year

Looking forward to a great year at Kanine Knits: more designs, more books, more appearances. I'm looking forward to meeting many more knitters this year.  

Watch for new Crafty Dog Knits books in 2012!

New! A Baker's Dozen of New Patterns!

With the fall shows behind us, Peggy Gaffney has been busy creating a bevy of new dog portrait patterns to add to the collection. The first group is now available to be ordered at the Kanine Knits website. There are many more in the design stage now which will be released soon. 

The first group consists of thirteen popular breeds: American Staffordshire Terrier, Basenji, Bedlington Terrier, Chihuahua, Chinese Crested, Chinese Shar Pei, Smooth Collie, English Toy Spaniel, Italian Greyhound, Papillion, Saluki, Shiba Inu and Tibetan Terrier.  

The beauty of these patterns is that though they come with a sweater in all the men’s and women’s sizes, the charts can be worked into a number of different items such as the pillows in the previous posts.

All these patterns plus more of the 100 plus patterns are available at the Kanine Knits Books & Patterns website. To check out and purchase any of these patterns or one of the other breed designs, simply go to http://www.kanineknits.com/kanine_knits_knitting_patterns.htm.

Christmas Is Coming

Knit A Quick Gift for the Dog Lover on Your List 

 A Puppy Pillow to Rest its Master's Head!

Here is a Pattern to Make the Pillow.

By doing the simple steps below, you can quickly create a pillow which will make an excellent holiday gift or a lovely decoration for your home that shows pride in your dog's breed.

Materials:

• Needles   #8 US or needles to give a gauge of 5 stitches and 6 rows to the inch.
• Yarn    Worsted Weight
• Pillow form     14” x 14”
• Any one of the more than 100 dog breed portrait patterns in the Kanine Knits charted design collection. http://www.kanineknits.com/kanine_knits_knitting_patterns.htm

Directions:

Cast on 70 stitches in Main Color, placing a stitch marker at the center point following stitch 35. Using the chart information for stitches and rows, subtract the number of rows from 84. When you get that number, divide by 2.  The number you get will tell you how many rows you will knit before beginning the chart of the dog and the number of rows you will knit when you’ve finished working the chart.

Hint:

Mark the center point on your chart and then mark every 5^th stitch either side for the number of stitches the chart requires. As you work the plain rows leading up to the beginning of the chart, place stitch markers on your work to either side of your original center stitch marker to correspond with the chart. When the knitting is complete, simply tuck in all the loose ends neatly on the back of your work.  To do this, overcast around the edge of each color with a yarn needle.

Finishing:

The back of the pillow can be either knit using the same 70 stitches and 84 rows, or if you are in a hurry, simply back with fabric sewn on three sides, the pillow inserted, and then sewn together on the fourth side.

Enjoy the Holidays!

Booth 725 at Stitches East - Welcome!

Booth 725 Stitches East

Join Peggy Gaffney & her friends from CIABA

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at Stitches East from Oct. 20 - 23. It is going to be the biggest and best ever. I will have more than 30 NEW PATTERNS that will be launched at the show. I am really looking forward to working with the wonderful people from the Cottage Industry Alpaca Breeders Association who will have their beautiful natural American bred alpaca yarn. Visit them and support the American farmer. 

I will be signing my books in the booth each day and have also been invited to give a demonstration on how I do this kind of intarsia knitting. I hope all of you will come and say hi. There will be lots to do and so everyone join in the festivities. See you soon. 

Peggy Gaffney Speaks about Facebook in Mystic.

Come hear me speak in Eastern Connecticut. Just grab a bite at Mystic Pizza and then wander over to the firehouse to hear me speak about marketing using Facebook and its 700 million members. The details are in the article below.

SECAPA to host author Peggy Gaffney - THE MYSTIC RIVER PRESS: News

CHRISTMAS IN JULY
at
Kanine Knits

            While I am madly working on a proposal for my newest book that will include both cats and dogs and lots of them, I decided that I would give all my loyal knitter fans a thank you gift for the encouragement you’ve given me in creating the books and patterns down through the years.
            So, I decided to have my first CHRISTMAS IN JULY sale at my website http://www.kanineknits.com. As a thank you, all of you will get 15% off any book or pattern you order for the rest of July. This is a great way to save money (something we all need to do) and to get a head start on your Christmas knitting. It may be hot out, but the colder weather will soon be upon us and you will be ready.
            To get this discount, just go to the shopping area and choose the books or patterns you want. When you get to the checkout, it will ask you to fill in the coupon code. The code for this sale is XMASJULY. Just type that in and the cart should automatically take the discount off as you check out.
            Don’t delay, since the offer is only good till the end of the month.
            I will have new patterns and books coming out, but till then, enjoy shopping and get knitting all those lovely thing for the dog, cat, llama and alpaca lovers in our lives.

Peggy

Have You Ever Been Kissed By An Alpaca?

Here I am arriving at the MAPACA Jubilee and being given the perfect welcome. The show begins tomorrow and I'll tell you, put 1,000 alpaca together in one place and you have a snuggle-fest. They are sooooooo cute. Tomorrow morning beginning at 9:00 am I will be teaching knitting and autographing my book The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits. I hope everyone in the Harrisburg area comes by to visit these wonderful animals and, of course, stop by and say hello to me.

I'm Off To Play With Alpacas

Tomorrow I start my journey to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to speak, teach, and autograph my books at the MAPACA Jubilee. This is the shows 15th year and it will be a ton of fun.

The Mid-Atlantic Alpaca Association includes farms up and down the east coast. The very early ancestor of the Camelids, which includes llamas, alpacas, vicunas and guanacos as well as the camel and dromedary developed in the Great Plains of America but then some traveled across the land bridge to Asia and Africa and some wandered south through Central America to settle in the mountainous regions of South America.

However, they began returning to North America beginning with the efforts of famous newspaper mogul William Randolf Hurst who brought some in to his California estate. In recent years, the popularity of these wonderful animals grew from the level of novelty to wonderful provider of fleece that could be knit into luxury clothing. There is a movement on among the thousands of alpaca farms across North America to get serious about marketing the more than 20,000 pounds of fleece as a group to encourage Americans knitters as well as the garment industry in the US to Buy American. 

The yarn is a "green" product in that it doesn't require a great deal of energy to get it. The animals are shorn every spring to protect them from the heat of summer and will grow a new full coat by the next spring. Since they come in over 20 natural colors, dying is not necessary to knit a wonderfully colorful garment. There is very little oil in the fleece so it doesn't have to be treated by harsh chemicals. But the biggest benefit for knitters (where my interest lies) is that the hairs in the fleece are so fine that the resulting yarn is incredibly soft. 

And so, I shall wend my way south tomorrow to spend a long weekend reveling in fleece, yarn and the excitement of this wonderful show.  I hope to see you all there.

Those of you who are on Linkedin, might want to visit the Kanine Knits new business page and build a connection so that we can work together to create pet portraits you'll love. The more ways that I can learn which dogs you want designed and how you like the Kanine Knits designs that you are working on the better. Spring is here and so take your knitting outside and knit in the sunshine!!!

Join the Discussion!

Maybe my blog readers could help me decide which breed I should do for my next book. This is the first time I've come to the end of a book and not had another one in the works (except for the children's book I'm writing) and I can't seem to decide which should be next. If you click the link you will go to my Kanine Knits Books and Patterns Facebook discussion page http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=17590&post=114773&uid=187193941325#post114773

Then you can give me your opinion of what book or books you'd like to see coming out soon. Let me know what you think!

Celebrate St. Patrick's Day With My Irish Pal

This day always makes me wish I could spend more time with my dear friend Rachel Gaffney (no relation). She hails from Cork and has brought Ireland to the US with her wonderful business Rachel Gaffney's Real Ireland. Now, for all you who crave beautiful hand crafted items, and you probably wouldn't be here if you didn't, I should tell you that this year Rachel is working to bring gorgeous crafts and jewelry "from the ol' sod" and make it available here in the US. I hope you will click this link http://www.tiny9.com/u/@Rachel_Gaffney as Rachel celebrates 2011 as the year of the Craft.

Irish Wolfhound

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In honor of the day, I thought that it would be appropriate to visit the Irish members of the design collection here at Kanine Knits. These wonderful dogs have been a vital part of Ireland's history down through the years, vital to the hunt and serving as wonderful companions. 

Irish Water Spaniel

Irish Setter

Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier

 

Real Men Knit Trailer

I 

Peggy talks with Martha Stewart about her latest book during a photo shoot.

 Rachel Gaffney of "Rachel Gaffney's Real Ireland" and Peggy Gaffney of Kanine Knits

I am just back from The Big Apple and a wonderful week of learning and socializing with Martha Stewart and eighty dynamic entrepreneurs who are part of Dreamers into Doers   If you want to see a video showing highlights of the event click the link.

The sessions were taught by dynamic experts in their fields, and I got a chance to talk to Martha and others about the new book, The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits. Above I'm wearing a sweater I did to show off the beauty of alpaca yarns in its natural colors. In spite of the cold icy rain that ruled the first day, the spirit of these ladies could not be dampened.

Now I'm back to create more books and designs plus some teaching products that will be coming out this year, but more on that later and on some speaking events that will be coming up this spring.

Wishing all the best of the Season to Everyone from Kanine Knits.

This has been a good year with the appearance of two new books, 

The Crafty Cat Knits with its dozen charted designs of different cats which 

can be found at http://craftycatknits.com

and with the newest book,

The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits which is a celebration of these

wonderful camelids and which contains twenty designs. This latest book can

be found at http://thecraftyllamaandalpacaknits.com.

Kanine Knits 

presents its latest book

The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits

The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits is a new knitting book coming out from publisher Kanine Knits at the end of December. The book, by author/designer Peggy Gaffney, was inspired when a group of llama and alpaca breeders approached her last fall at Stitches East.

She was there autographing books in her series of dog portrait knitting books. They wanted to know if she would be willing to create a book, in a style similar to her Crafty Dog Knits series, for those who breed, show and love llamas and alpacas. They pointed out that not only was it a wonderful topic but, "We've got yarn!!!"

            So, after many months of research and hobnobbing with these wonderful camelids, the book is being published. It is publisher Kanine Knits policy to give their fans a chance to order new releases at a discount prior to them coming off the press. They are the first ones to receive the book plus they save money. So The Crafty Llama and Alpaca Knits is now available to be ordered at a 20% discount till the end of December. 2010. After that it will be available at the regular price.

             

To find out more about this offer, to see inside the book and to learn more about Peggy Gaffney and her books published by Kanine Knits, visit the website http://thecraftyllamaandalpacaknits.com

           
 

 

Peggy is honored by Martha Stewart. Click the link to read the interview.

I am being honored by Martha Stewart. I have been chosen as Doer of the Week from among the more than 6,000 entrepreneurs who are part of the Dreamers Into Doers program sponsored by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. It is wonderful being part of this inspiring group of women from around the world who support each other as they grow their businesses and their lives. The friendships made among these women as they watch their dreams of grow, in their the role as business women and at the same time as women who are making the world a better place, are firm and will last a lifetime.