Team USA wears Skidmore alumna’s gear at 2022 Winter Olympic Games
Sh*t That I Knit (STIK), a Boston-based small business founded and run by Skidmore alumna Christina Fagan Pardy ’12, is an official licensee of Team USA for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The STIK for Team USA collection of beanies and mittens features hand-embroidered Team USA stitching with the official U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team marks and will be donned by athletes and fans alike.
Sh*t That I Knit has created two distinct Team USA-branded beanies and two pairs of matching mittens.
“It is an honor to create products that celebrate America’s best athletes as they represent our nation on the world’s biggest stage,” said Pardy, who majored in art history and minored in management and business at Skidmore.
“I’ve watched the Olympic Games since I was a little girl, marveling at the strength and determination of our athletes as they competed for Team USA,” she said. “I’m proud to have this opportunity to feature the official U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team marks on my designs and inspire the next generation of Team USA hopefuls.”
While a student at Skidmore, Pardy started a knitting blog with the same name as her future company. The blog, which initially served as a creative outlet to share what she was knitting, grew into a small business that sold her wares.
After graduating in 2012, she joined a startup in Boston, where she learned more about the sales side of running a business. In 2015, she quit her 9-to-5 job to pursue STIK full time.
“It was very much bootstrapped in the beginning and very much a side hustle,” Pardy said
A 2015 Kickstarter campaign quickly raised $25,000 for the young company and helped boost her audience among millennials on Instagram. A dedicated following catapulted STIK into a profitable business in its first year. The quality of the products and Pardy’s own hustle also resulted in celebrity endorsements, including American Hannah Teter, a gold and silver medal-winning Olympic snowboarder.
From there, the seed of a dream was planted: STIK was going to make it to the Olympic stage.
In 2018, Pardy had a chance encounter with a high-ranking member of the U.S. Olympic Committee at STIK’s pop-up store in New York City. Pardy seized the opportunity.
“They liked the brand a lot, liked how much we wanted it, and they gave us a chance,” Pardy said “It’s been huge for us as a small brand.”
Christina Fagan Pardy ’12 is interviewed by media. STIK has been featured by the Boston Globe, the “Today” show, and numerous other outlets.
Pardy says she is still “pinching herself” that the company has grown so quickly and credits its success to hardworking artisans and the company’s core values: All STIK products are consciously created and sourced ethically and sustainably. Its knitwear is handmade by a team of artisans in Lima, Peru; each piece carries a story of a woman, knitting from home, earning a viable income to support her family.
“Many of them are making more money than their husbands. They’re sending their kids to college on this money,” Pardy said in a “They’re really supporting their families, and it’s making a real impact.”
Pardy and her team are making an impact across this country as well: She has introduced knitting as a stress reliever to thousands of people throughout the United States and has donated hundreds of “knit kits” to cancer patients and, more recently, to those needing an escape from the mental wear of the COVD-19 pandemic.
The XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing begin Feb. 4 and the Paralympic Games on March 4. You can or simply enjoy spotting them on the athletes as they are telecast around the world.