Kanine Knits: Sweaters for the Dog Fancy

Portraits of Dogs in Knitting

Knitting designs that bring the world of dogs to haute couture.

877 Marion Road, Cheshire, CT 06410
 (203)649-6407  or(877)852-1171 (toll free)

Meet the Designer

Peggy Gaffney 

     Knitting and the needle arts were fascinating for designer Peggy Gaffney since childhood. She always enjoyed adding a new type of embroidery or a new method of knitting to her skills. Then, thirty-six years ago, her first Samoyed puppy claimed her heart. Today, generations later, a breeder/owner/handler of a line of champion Samoyeds, the dog fancy and her six Samoyeds are a major part of her life. It was inevitable that these two loves should come together.

      She was looking to develop a new career direction as she planned her early retirement from public school teaching. By chance, about ten years ago, she designed a dog sweater for a friend just for fun. All her dog friends were so impressed with the design detail and accuracy  that she soon had requests pouring in for sweaters showing a variety of AKC breeds. Kanine Knits: Sweaters for the Dog Fancy  design studio began. To date Peggy has created designs for over one hundred breeds for her clients. Today Peggy designs not only the AKC breeds but a number of rare breeds as well.

      In 2005, Peggy decided to create pattern books for knitters. However, rather than writing a traditional knitting book, she chose expand it to be a celebration of a single breed's world in stories and designs. She focused on all the activities and events that make that one breed unique and filled the book with articles, stories and photos about these events. Then basing her designs on these events and created over 25 intarsia knitting patterns that showed the dogs in action. These can be knit into the more than 20 different styles. The Crafty Dog Series books  each concentrates on a single breed. The first book, The Crafty Samoyed - Knits is due out in August 2005 to be soon followed with similar books for Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, Newfoundlands, Boxers, Shetland Sheepdogs, Bichon Frise, Pembroke and Cardigan Welsh Corgis and many other breeds. 

     On a personal note, Peggy has one son, Sean, and is a retired school teacher and library media specialist.

   "She is a master of her craft..." - John Ronald, AKC judge