Drew Emborsky, aka The Crochet Dude®, was taught to crochet at age five by his mother while snowbound in Lake Tahoe. After studying fine art in college and living as a “starving artist” for years, he found solace in crocheting for charity while grieving the passing of his mom. It was during this time with the charity group that Drew became known as The Crochet Dude, which then led to the launch of his wildly popular blog in 2005, The Crochet Dude. Since then, Drew has had published numerous patterns in magazines and compilations books, his own full-length books, has appeared as a guest on various TV programs, and is currently the crochet expert on the hit PBS show Knit and Crochet Now. And watch out, crochet has a new Boye®toy, as Drew has teamed up with Boye® brand hooks to launch his own line of kits, hooks, tools, and accessories, available now nationwide. Drew lives in Houston, TX with his cats Chandler and Cleocatra.
Contact:
Web: www.thecrochetdude.com
Email: thecrochetdude@gmail.com
Twitter: @crochetdude
Erin Livers, ICNT (Integrative Clinical Nutrition Therapist) is a multi-faceted nutrition therapist and health educator. Her integrative approach to nutrition therapy combines Nutritional Anthropology, Functional Medicine, Chinese Medicine, Guided Imagery, and Intuitive Counseling, which supports her clients to discover how to nourish their body with food and nurture themselves in all aspects of life. Her philosophy is food as medicine: how our relationship to food and the food we eat creates the foundation for our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. In her private practice, she helps people to lose weight and maintain it, improve digestion, relieve fatigue, sleep soundly, improve memory and concentration, balance mood and hormones, improve skin blemished by acne and eczema, improve PMS, relieve headaches, and prepare healthy meals with renewed inspiration. All this is done while partnering with a clients’ healthcare practitioner. She currently teaches nutrition and health-related subjects at Bauman College, a school for holistic nutrition and culinary arts in Boulder. Her passion for teaching leads her to offer many classes and workshops to the public as well. Erin resides in progressive Boulder, Colorado where she tends vegetables, herbs, fruits and flowers in her organic garden before creatively cooking and eating them.
Gale Zucker is the co-author/photographer of the book Shear Spirit: Ten Farms, Twenty Projects and Miles of Yarn (PotterCraft, 2008) and the photographer for Mason Dixon: Knitting Outside the Lines (October, 2008). She recently completed photography for a new title, Craft Activism: People, Projects & Ideas from the New Community of Handmade, to be published by PotterCraft in September, 2011. Gale is an award-winning editorial and commercial photographer who’s worked on assignment for Smithsonian, Yankee, Wine Spectator, TV Guide, CraftStylish, USA Weekend, Woman’s Day, and for The New York Times, as well as for non-profit foundations and businesses. Gale has been teaching Photography for Knitters workshops since 2009, leading classes in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, California, Minnesota, and Washington state. A lifelong knitter and crafter, Gale lives in shoreline Connecticut with her family and blogs at 
Genevieve P. Charet is the Chicago-based writer and homesteader behind MaryJanesFarm magazine’s “Urban Homesteading” column. Her articles and essays have appeared everywhere from national magazines to blogs to her mother’s refrigerator. Genevieve grows an organic orchard and vegetable garden on her city steps, and adopts projects with wild abandon. On a given day, you might find her bubbling up kefir, culturing cheese, brewing beer or mead, baking artisan sourdough loaves, sprouting sproutables, crafting craftables, wrapping charcuterie, decorating cakes, churning butter, fermenting produce, or pickling anything that isn’t nailed down (and some things that are). The only thing she loves more than getting her hands dirty with a project is getting your hands dirty with a project, so step lightly and … too late, she heard you. Genevieve’s free-range philosophy includes being a handful, trying everything once, writing what she feels, feeling what she writes, and not caring when she laughs so loudly that people look. If she had a dollar for every time someone called her “mild-mannered,” she’d have a quarter.
eier is the author of Reversible Knits (Lark, 2009), Lacy Little Knits (Lark, 2007), Modular Knits (Lark, 2005) and co-author of Exquisite Little Knits (Lark, 2004). Her original innovative techniques are being used in knitting workshops around the world, and her patterns have been translated into multiple languages. She has appeared on various TV shows has written articles and published patterns for leading knitting magazines. She founded Art Yarns to produce yarns and color combinations for her designs that were just not available elsewhere. The company’s world-renowned line of yarns now encompasses unusual and intriguing combinations of fibers, even some with embellishments, and all hand-painted in luscious ways to work optimally with her patterns. To view more of Iris’s designs and yarns, and to watch videos of her techniques, please visit 
Janet Hurst enjoys country living. “I fondly remember my great-grandmother’s farm, collecting eggs, playing with kittens in the hay loft, and fetching jars from the old fruit cellar. I thought it was heaven on Earth! This is the type of life I knew I wanted for my own family. I had a dream of a few acres and a goat. That dream came true, and goats have been a part of things around my farm ever since! Because I had goats, I began to experiment with cheesemaking, and eventually I went on to study cheesemaking at the Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese and the University of Guelph, Canada, as well as at small farms in Israel. I made cheese commercially for several years.”
Jennifer Tuma-Young – Chief Creative Officer (aka ”The Inspirista”)-Jennifer is a dreamer, planner, believer. She fell in love with Terry and her mission the moment they met, and has completely thrown herself into it ever since. She is responsible for helping women with personal development, change management, and inside-out transformation.
Terry Grahl – Chief Executive Officer (aka ”The Visionary”)-Terry founded Enchanted Makeovers (EM) in 2007, and has been on an extraordinary journey ever since. She creates the vision for the organization, and pours her heart and soul into every last detail, from makeovers to programs to events to strategic planning.
Terry is an award-winning decorator who’s creativity, child-like innocence, and whimsy is reflected throughout the mission.
Terry was named People Magazine and MLB’s “All-Star Among Us” in 2010 out of 7,500 nominations nationwide. Within a week she was standing on the Los Angeles Angels Baseball field watching as celebrity Sheryl Crow presented a video on her non-profit at the MLB All-Star game in California.
The artists behind 
Josh Bennett is a New York City-based designer. He designs and knits for many fashion designers and has recently worked with Project Runway winner, Irina Shabayeva, on her Winter 2011 and Winter 2010 collections for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. His original designs can be seen in Vogue Knitting, Knit Simple, and Knit.1. Currently, Josh is attending the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), majoring in Menswear Design, his first love.
