2008 Teachers > Bios

An award-winning designer, Suzanne Atkinson began designing about ten years ago. Since that time, her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Knitter's Magazine, Creative Knitting Magazine, and The Great American Aran Afghan. Suzanne has been teaching knitting workshops for the past eight years on a variety of technique-based topics and enjoys sharing her knitting discoveries with knitters of all skill levels.

Beth Brown Reinsel has been involved in many facets of the fiber arts as a spinner, basket weaver, dyer, knitter, former yarn shop and mail order business owner, author, and knitwear designer, but teaching is her passion. She wrote Knitting Ganseys which evolved from her workshops on traditional Ganseys. Her articles have appeared in Cast On, Interweave Knits and Knitters magazines. She continues to design for yarn companies, magazines and her own pattern line.

Cat Bordhi learned to knit at age eight. She has always loved the mystery of pulling loops through loops to make a shaped fabric, and continues to delight in the endless possibilities that keep appearing. She likes nothing better than to have a knitting experiment go awry because it means very interesting, possibly never-before-seen things are probably hiding nearby.

Gwen Bortner, owner of Knitabilities, LLC is accredited by the Professional Knitwear and Designers Guild in both teaching and design. Her math background made designing and writing patterns a natural extension to her love of fiber and knitting in particular.

Amy Detjen teaches at Meg Swansen’s knitting camp, and has been called an “outstanding knitting visionary” who is both witty and infectiously charismatic.

Fifty years ago, Martha Gifreda’s mother taught her to knit in an (unsuccessful) effort to keep her quiet. Her prize winning hat design features knitted-as-you-go I-cord.

Maureen Mason Jamieson is interested in all types of color knitting, particularly modular knitting. She attended a workshop with Horst Schulz and assisted at his workshop. She conducts workshops in modular and other knitting techniques.

Ruth Lantz specializes in dressmaking, weaving, machine/handknitting, and crochet. She has produced wearable art sold in galleries across the country. She enjoys teaching a knit module to fashion design students.

Melissa Leapman is a widely published sweater designer whose patterns have appeared in Vogue Knitting, Knitter’s, Interweave Knits  and other magazines. Leapman has worked as a freelance designer for many leading ready-to-wear manufacturers  and major yarn companies.

Sally Melville loves all aspects of life as a ‘professional’ knitter: teaching, writing, designing, and trying to explain to the uninitiated what it is this all means! She has an extensive teaching schedule that takes her around the world, speaking to wonderful folk who can appreciate the perfect buttonhole, who love the textures and colors and techniques of knitting, who want to be more intuitive about their craft, and who know that life is about learning.

Lucy Neatby is a self-confessed fiberholic, hand-knitting designer, teacher, and former Merchant Navy Officer.

Shannon Okey is the author of Spin to Knit, Felt Frenzy : 26 Projects for all Forms of Felting and KnitGrrl series. She writes, knits, spins yarn, runs several small businesses and organizes events ranging from the Cleveland edition of Bazaar Bizarre to gallery shows featuring fellow fiber artists .  She is also a columnist for knit.1 magazine.

Judy Pascale launched her career as a professional knitting instructor and designer in the early 1990's. She is now exclusively teaching knitting and design classes with the emphasis on customizing desired fit.

Candace Eisner Strick learned both music and knitting at the age of three, and has followed these two loves all her life. She was co-director and cello instructor of the Suzuki String Program of Mansfield, CT for 16 years. She is the author of Sweaters From a New England Village (Down East Books, 1996), a book about Harrisville, NH which features twenty original designs using Harrisville Designs yarn. Her second book, Sweaters From New England Sheep Farms (Down East Books, 2000) is a series of portraits of eight New England sheep farmers who hand-dye the wool they produce, and includes over 25 original designs using their fiber. Her third knitting book, Beyond Wool (Martingale and Co., Feb. 2004), uses a variety of fibers other than wool. There are chapters about the fibers as well as 25 original designs. Her fourth book, The Quilter's Quick Reference Guide, was released in June, 2004 by Martingale and Co. Her fifth publication, Little Box of Crocheted Bags, was released in March 2006 by Martingale and Co. She is currently working on her sixth book. Her designs and writing have appeared in Knitter's Magazine, Interweave Knits, Vogue Knitting, Knit It Magazine, Wild Fiber Magazine, Cast On Magazine and Vogue Knitting books. Candace designs for yarn companies while she and her husband run their internet based business, www.Strickwear.com, which features her exclusive designs, and her new line of yarn, Merging Colors.

Candace teaches workshops internationally at major knitting conventions and guilds. Her other fiber
related interests include spinning, weaving, dyeing and quilting. When not doing the above, she is
riding her bicycle. She lives in rural Connecticut with her pianist/knitting husband and 2 birds. She has
three grown sons, all of whom know how to knit but refuse to do so.

Marilyn Van Keppel is a retired professor of mathematics and has been knitting for over 50 years. Marilyn attends Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp each year, and one year there she found a slim volume of knitted shawls, written in a strange-looking language. Intrigued, she set out to make one of the shawls. Marilyn found a dictionary at a local university that helped her translate some of the terms into English. At the end of the semester, the university wanted their book back, so she made her first trip to the Faroe Islands to buy a dictionary. Marilyn felt she had never been in a place that was more a spiritual home than the beautiful Faroes Islands.

Linda Witt learned to knit in the Girl Scouts and has always been fascinated with unusual and innovated yarns. Handspinning opened up a whole new world of possibilities for combining fibers, colors and textures to create those special one of a kind yarns. Teaching spinning for over 20 years, Linda enjoys introducing beginners and more experienced spinners to unique yarn designs for knitters and weavers.