About Tanis
A graduate of RISD, Tanis Gray lives in Washington, DC with her green Mechanical Engineer husband, toddler son and lazy pug. Having worked at Martha Stewart, HBO, Focus Features, in the art department in the film and television industries, and a 4-year career as the Yarn Editor at Vogue Knitting and co-editor of Knit.1, she has been working in the creative field for many years.
Tanis has over 260 published knitting designs, and her work has been featured in many major publications and books, including 11 covers. She also edits other knitting books, does the social media for numerous yarn companies and teaches often in and around DC.
Check out her books Knit Local: Celebrating America’s Homegrown Yarns published by Sixth & Spring and Capitol Knits, a self-published knitting and history book inspired by Washington, DC.
Hi Tanis. I’m just getting back into knitting and am astonished at how much fun the yarns and knitting designs are. Yours in particular. But I’m really writing to say that I grew up with a last name of Tanis. My sister, brother and I were born in New Jersey; my father grew up in Paterson, NJ. We always thought Tanis would make a pretty first name, but haven’t used it because Tanis was our last name. My father was Dutch.
I would love to know the origin of your name. And in the meantime, I’ll look for your knitting patterns.
Cheers, Margie Tanis Carpenter
Well, this is REALLY strange as I’ve just read the comment before mine about your first name. When I first saw the cover of Capitol Knits I thought I was looking at a young picture of my Mother! I do not know you but heard about you over on Susan Anderson’s blog. What’s even stranger is my Mother’s maiden name was Gray. I was curious as my Mother’s family was originally from Ireland. I know Gray is a common name but I couldn’t help it after the picture which I don’t know if that’s a picture of you or a model. I just had to ask! Thanks…now back to looking at your books!
That’s my good friend and model, Jess!
Thanks for replying to me and tell Jess I think she’s beautiful!
Hi Tanis, Tamara (fitknitchick) visiting to see what you’re up to; ‘knitting is my job’ piqued my curiosity! Wow! I would love to be a knitwear designer! Looking forward to checking out your patterns!