After learning to knit from her grandmother at age 10, author and hand knitting pattern designer Chrissy Gardiner 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. It was here she first laid hands on merino and learned that not all wool is unbearably scratchy.Knitting became a renewed obsession for Chrissy after her children were born and she was left wondering what happened to her creativity. She left the corporate world and her former life as a software architect behind for good and decided to start a small knitting pattern publishing company called Gardiner Yarn Works. Soon after, the lure of writing her own book became too strong to resist and Sydwillow Press was born.In addition to her Gardiner Yarn Works and Sydwillow Press designs, Chrissy's work 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.She keeps her skills sharp and gets feedback from all sorts of knitters while teaching at yarn shops, knitting guild meetings and knitting conventions. When she's not teaching, designing or dealing with the myriad tasks of running a small business, she spends entirely too much time trying to convince her two children not to run with knitting needles.