Rosemary Cox learned to knit from her beloved grandmother at the ripe old age of seven. Years later, knitting became a major focus when she began her doctoral program in chemical engineering and found a lovely bunch of knitters at her school. She has more recently become a mom to a spirited little one, which has been a fantastic new adventure. You can find her living in Northern Virginia with her wonderful husband and a sweet, mischievous little crawler. Their sheep, alpaca and angora goats live nearby on the family farm. She is on Ravelry as KarmaRose.

Chrissy Gardiner began her knitting odyssey in 2005, shortly after the birth of her second child. Finding herself a bit stir crazy at home with an infant and toddler (but with absolutely no desire to go back to her former career as a software architect), she decided to figure out how to turn her craft obsession into a little business. Thus, Gardiner Yarn Works was born.

Chrissy is a regular contributor to Interweave Knits and has designed for Knitty, Twist Collective, Classic Elite Yarns, Blue Moon Fiber Arts and numerous compilation books. She has published her own line of patterns under Gardiner Yarn Works. Since 2006 she has written two sock books, Toe-Up! Patterns and Worksheets to Whip Your Sock Knitting Into Shape
 and Indie Socks: Knitting Patterns and Dyer Profiles Featuring Hand-Dyed Yarns

You can find more of Chrissy’s work at her website, Gardiner Yarn Works. She can be found on Ravelry as chrissyg and on twitter as @knittinmom. She lives in beautiful Portland, Oregon, with her two kids, three cats, two rabbits and one extremely patient husband.

Erica lives in The Birthplace of Biotech with her husband, daughters Thing One and Thing Two, Pit Bull, and the memory of her son. She learned to knit as a child and, after a 30-year hiatus, picked up needles and yarn again in 2004. Her first project that year was a scarf knit as she mourned the loss of her newborn son. Since then, Erica has rarely been without her knitting, even on a catamaran 50 miles from shore in the Pacific Ocean and in a hotel lounge in Singapore (She doesn’t knit during church services, but nearly everywhere else is fair game. Heather likes to believe God would understand if she did knit in church).

Erica has been:

• a test and sample knitter for Wendy Bernard, Chris Church, and Melissa Leapman
• published in Knitty
• a first place winner in her local county fair (2006)
• and has recently branched out into publishing her own designs (and she thinks that all makes her sound much *bigger* than she really is).

She is an avid CraftLit listener, trying to keep the B.A. in English portion of her brain from rotting away from disuse. Her previous roles have included stints as a trainee teacher, receptionist, stressed-out LAN administrator, marketing coordinator, website content editor, and more, but she enjoys the at-home mom gig the most. She blogs sporadically and is on Ravelry, Facebook, and Twitter as ericah64.

Beverly Army Williams crafts words and fiber in the woods of Connecticut, where she lives with her husband and three active mutts. She teaches writing at a small public university and blogs at PoMoGolightly.

Kate Atherley is Knitty‘s Lead Technical Editor and the author of Cooperative Press books Beyond Knit and Purl and Knit Accessories. She’s a keen sock knitter, enjoys challenging knitting, and is prone to a bit of drama. Find her online at www.wisehildaknits.com and by email at kate@wisehildaknits.com.

Mari learned to knit while serving in the Peace Corps. During the long cold winters she would curl up in a ball and try to stay warm, then she learned to knit and knit herself a blanket. Unfortunately being self taught she did not seam the blanket properly and the whole thing fell apart within a few months. She began designing while living and teaching English in China. Mari now lives in North Carolina and is dedicated to making seamless patterns, and you can find her at www.mariknits.com and on Ravelry as MariChiba.

Cassandra Deavers and Alexandra (Alex) Aulisi are a Madison, WI-based graphic designer and writer respectively. They knit, sew, embroider, cook, garden, and often get distracted by shiny things—then they blog about it at www.MightyDistractible.com. They would like to thank (a million times over) their extraordinary test knitter and friend, Gael Boyd (a.k.a Stitchlilly). She can be found at www.StitchLilly.com.

Elizabeth Green Musselman wears many knitted hats: she is assistant editor at Cooperative Press, designs knitwear (mainly for men and boys) under the moniker Dark Matter Knits, creates pattern templates and e-book designs for other knitwear designers, teaches knitting classes, and many other things besides. She previously taught college history for 13 years. Elizabeth lives in Austin, Texas.

Becky Greene was born with the “Must Make Things” gene, inherited from both grandmothers. Along with obsessively knitting socks, she crochets a little, sews a little, gardens a little, and bakes a lot. She works at a school library which makes a convenient excuse for continuing to read children’s literature. She also has four children who are a constant source of delight, exasperation, and amusement. Find her online at greenethumb.wordpress.com and as greenethumb on Ravelry.

– TestKnitter: FreyalynClose (freyalyn)
– Stunt Knitter: Erin Spiker (spinnerin)

Sarah Jordan learned to read at age 4 and to knit at age 7. She once said she wanted to read for a living; she now works full time as an editor and proofreader (and knits in every spare moment). She blogs at PAKnitWit. You can find her on Ravelry as PAKnitWit.

After the birth of her middle child, Wendy took up quilting as a hobby. Being an A type she went whole hog into quilting and filled the home with fabric. This turned into a small sewing business at WendysModestDress.com. During this time she also did a bit of writing and was published in a few different magazines. When the sewing got to be too much she started to crochet again, which then led to a massive stash of crocheting thread… all the way down to size 70! After that died off a bit Wendy went head first into knitting again (learned as a child), which lead to SABLE¹ in 6 months! Needless to say, she will be knitting her garage down for a good, long time.

Happily married and living in the sticks on 2.5 acres with 2 children, 2 dogs, 2 cats, a pony, and a sheep (only one of which is female, her model and youngest child) she learned to spin and dye to cover all her many yarnie needs without ever leaving the house. This led to work as a professional spinner for a large Independent yarn company. She also dipped into dyeing and worked with Renee of Goddess Knits. Their lovely hand dyed Goddess Lace yarn was enjoyed by many but she now prefers to dye for personal enjoyment. Wendy has test knit for a dozen or so other companies. Her work has been seen in catalogs, magazines, books and on the catwalk at Stitches West. She prefers knitting and so remains firmly entrenched in test knitting and designing but will spin forever–because surely it’s as good as walking right? You can see a few of her patterns on Ravelry, the most popular of which is the Beaded Scallop Smoke Ring cowl. Wendy can be found at wmdress@sbcglobal.net and blogs a bit at wmdramble.blogspot.com.

¹Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy

Laura Ricketts lives in the plains of Indiana with her husband, Chris, and her three squirrelly children. She maintains sanity by playing with wool. The draw to the dark side must be strong, as her husband viewed the craft room and gave her the moniker “Stashmuffin.” She lurks on-line as that alter ego, maintaining a blog site at http://stashmuffinsloosethreads.blogspot.com and on Ravelry.

– TestKnitter: Erin (FiberIsGoodForYou)

Kathleen Rogers has been doing needle crafts since way back in the middle of the 20th century when her mother taught her to crochet lace edgings for linen handkerchiefs, as well as to cook, sew, and embroider.   She learned to knit from her aunt so that she could make a mustard-yellow sweater (with black and red embroidery) she saw in a magazine.  In the 21st century, her color sense has improved, and she loves working with hand-dyed yarns from independent dyers, and with one-of-a-kind yarns from artisanal spinners.   She and her knitting and crocheting projects and designs can be found on Ravelry where she is katrog.

In real life, she lives with her husband and her craft supplies within earshot of Boston. You can find more of her patterns at her Ravelry store.

Natalie Servant has too many interests to fully follow them all, but reading and crafting have always been a part of her life. She had a rough introduction to knitting in Brownies where being left-handed wasn’t a good thing. She only started knitting in earnest as a poor sweater-loving engineering student. A few years ago she began developing her own patterns and is now self-publishing them. She’s currently a stay-at-home mom to two delightful children. Find Natalie on Ravelry, on her blog, and in her Ravelry shop.
– Test Knitters: Jane (janielet43); Toni (equine); Mickey (xstmj); J J (jtucker201); Karen (puffycats)

Julia Temisevä is a knitter, ballroom dancer and writer. She is Finnish, currently living in London, UK.  Writing was her first creative pursuit, and so she has a BA and an MA in Creative Writing. Her short stories are written somewhat sporadically but obsessively; when inspiration strikes, either in designing knitwear or in story form, that idea has to be let out, otherwise sleep is compromised. She has learned this the hard way.
She knows how to crochet and spins on drop spindles, but knitting will always be her first choice in the fiber arts. Dancing is a hobby, knitting is a way of life.  Read her ramblings about yarn, dancing, gardening and other daily goings-on at her blog; see her other designs by going to Ravelry, where she goes by Luliriisi.

– TestKnitters: Toshi (celeritas2); Laura (angelfire212); Sarah Woolley (Thundertabby)
– Stunt Knitters: Stephanie (lumierelanuit); Mary (Fleecefriend); Jessica Johnston (kn1t1t)

Diane Trap thinks that if Prospero had a Kindle he’d have had room on his lifeboat for his sons Hieronymous and Handsome Bob. She is Peg of Tilling on Ravelry and elsewhere on the Internet. When reading Persuasion she always skims past the fall on the Cobb because it’s very upsetting.

test knitters: Sandra Riggs, Elizabeth White.

Meg is truly a citizen of the world. Having lived in Italy, Korea, and Japan, in addition to her small Idaho ranch, she has enjoyed traveling the world in an effort to learn as much as she can. Some of her favorite spots are Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Ireland, Wales, and (as you’ll see in Defarge Does Shakespeare) Venice. She has had some of her artwork exhibited in Tokyo and some of her haiku published there as well as in the United States.

She learned to knit as a child but found the experience to be “sticks in the eyes” frustrating due to the perfectionist attitude taken by her grandmother who told her the only way to fix a problem was to rip back to it. From this she learned to love imperfection in all aspects of her life. When she took knitting back up she discovered that the only thing she remembers from childhood is how her grandmother taught her to hold her needles. So she knits in the old Scottish style—and thanks her grandmother every day of her life for having the patience to try to teach someone so unwilling to learn.

She owns a small yarn business, March Hare Yarns (see Van Tassel Mittens, below, for one of her colors), and until recently raised her own sheep for spinning wool. She knits all the time, everywhere … much to the confusion of her Italian neighbors.

Shannon Sneedse is a New Jersey based illustrator and graphic designer. She has a BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University. For the past 15 years, she’s worked in the apparel and textile industries in New York City. She enjoys creating artwork in either watercolor or scratchboard. She is currently the Resident Illustrator for In Your Ear Shakespeare, and the producer of the Chop Bard podcast. Her artwork can be found at www.shannonsneedse.com. She is snowbird626 on Ravelry.

Heather Ordover began her professional life in Hollywood as a production assistant, became an award-winning high school teacher in NYC, then stayed home (often but not always) with her children while writing curriculum and other things and sometimes teaching at the University of Arizona. Now, she podcasts about knitting and literature on CraftLit where she shares “audiobooks with benefits” when she isn’t writing YA fiction, working on a Defarge book, or otherwise getting herself into trouble. She lives in Eastern PA with her amused husband, two goofball sons (Thing1 and Thing2), a sly cat, and an attic stuffed with yarn.
– StuntKnitters: KatieRhodes (knittymamaMT), Liz Arthur (FiberGeek), Heather Nielsen (HSailorMoon), Donna Peyton (LaceySockKitty)