Rian Anderson is a very experienced knitter and pattern designer. She has designed knitwear for the "Beverly Hills set" in Los Angeles, had exhibitions of her designs in the Edinburgh festival, and her patterns have been featured in Australian knitting magazines, including the cover of Creative Knitting, May 2006. She has been teaching knitting for many years, beginners to advanced, and a wide range of specialty knitting techniques.

Rian was born in the UK, but is now Australian by choice. She learnt to knit at the age of 4 and has been practicing ever since, learning to spin her own yarn in 1975. She became adept at designing her own patterns as well as knitting the garments.

Her handspun intarsia designs were featured in the Celtic Arts festival held in Brittany in 1981, and also in exhibitions during the Edinburgh Festival in 1981 and 1982. For a number of years in the 1980s she designed and made garments for Hollywood celebrities.

Since coming to Australia in 1983 she has expanded her range of skills, teaching many types of crafts to hospital patients, and then teaching knitting skills to students at a specialist yarn and thread shop in Brisbane. She now specialises in designing and writing patterns, for sale online at her shops ("Rian Anderson") on ravelry, Etsy and LoveKnitting.

This book was written after a number of workshops Rian held to teach her own designs, using many balls of different yarn in the one garment. Many of the models pictured are participants of these workshops, and the garments they are wearing are the results of their efforts.

Creative Knitting, May 2006

Contact Details

To contact Rian, e-mail her directly.