I am going to make you either drool or get in your car.

I am a Japanophile, and that includes knitting stuff. Cara and other knitting superstars have been similarly overtaken by the Japanese knitting bug.

I spend at least one day every few months at one of the huge Asian malls in Toronto. Hub knows that when I'm frazzled, it's a good way to mellow me out. All that sensory input. He sends me up there and I bring home dumplings and chewy grape thingies for him, with my eyes happily glazed over.

I've been to First Markham Place at least 3 times in the last 6 months. So how the HELL did I miss Sweet Home? A Japanese yarn store in Toronto! No link -- there's no website. But I'm telling you now, people: they have Japanese yarn AND magazines. They don't sell the magazines [though I've encouraged the owner to consider it, since there are so many of us who'd drool to be able to flip through and then BUY one of these beauties] but you can consult them for patterns. I won't tell you how you get the pattern. Maybe once she starts selling the books, that will change. BUT, if you've been looking, here's somewhere to continue the search. Call them at 905-474-1788. Teresa is the nice lady that runs the place. And yes, she will do a special order for you, depending on what it is.

Worth a call.

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My last post has sat up for a while, because I'm [as you would hope] focused on getting Knitty done and ready for y'all. But I've also been watching the comments with interest. It seems that many people feel as I do, a good number feel the absolute opposite and some people aren't bothered one way or the other. Interesting.

I'd just like to state again for the record that I did not say the greetings in question offended me. I was just searching for a more inclusive way to get warm holiday greetings spread from person to person without isolating any one group. I'll continue the search.

For now, my greeting will stay "Happy Holidays", and I wish that to all of you.

Maybe we could stop assuming

I'm not a militant member of any religion, but I am big on not making assumptions. Like you'd probably never congratulate someone on being pregnant just because they've got a bit of a tummy, I really wish people would stop assuming which holiday anyone else celebrates. I never wish anyone anything other than Happy Holiday. I wish people would do the same for me.

Why is this coming up today? I went to mail a package to the incredibly kind Sadie, she of the month of March in the Knitty calendar, and watched as the person behind the counter put the stamp on the right on the package. Yup. There's the original holy family. What is it doing on my package?

When she asked me if I wanted to buy xmas stamps, that's when I went didactic. I hadn't even had my coffee yet. I just said, very politely, that maybe she should ask first before assuming people celebrate any specific holiday. We had a wee chat about it, and I felt quite like a lunatic making a fuss about this, but it really is important to me.

I live in the most diverse city in Canada. Who knows WHAT the person sitting next to me on the bus celebrates? I know no one means any harm by a simple wish of "Merry Xmas", but "Happy Holiday" should mean even more, because it's inclusive. That's all I'm saying.

Be inclusive!

Holy hannah!

Remember this? Just last March, Knitty welcomed its 5 millionth visitor. It was a really happy day, watching the numbers flip over.

Today, a mere 8 months later, number 10 million walked through the door. We've had 10 million individual visits to Knitty. Think about that a little. It took almost 3 years to hit 5 million, and just a fraction of that to double it. It makes my head hurt, but in only the best way.

To celebrate, what's a girl to do but redesign the Knittylove swag? Eeee!

okay, it's like this...

You may have read on Emma Jane's blog that she had me over for a dyeing party Friday night. It was amazing.

First, this woman is well stocked. She gets her goods from THE dye people in town and knows her stuff.

We sat down with the following:
- 3 skeins natural colored 100% cotton, approx 1500 yards.
- 2 skeins thick/thin cotton that I'd ordered online and hadn't liked the color once it arrived
- 1 skein pale grey silk, obtained the day Jenna cleared out her stash
- 1 skein natural silk/linen, from Habu.

Okay. So first off, I really wanted a chocolate/cherry sweater. Emma fiddled with the dye, going for the deepest brown we could get, and then punctuated it with screaming magenta and deep violet. We saran-wrapped her floor, the skeins soaked as best they could with the appropriate mordant [read Emma's entry for more details] and I got to work. I squirted bottles of dye and squeezed with my gloved hands and when we were done, they were absolutely gorgeous. Deep, rich chocolate with nearly edible warm hints of pink/burgundy and purple here and there. Just right. We wrapped in saran wrap, microwaved to set the colors and then offloaded them into ziplock bags so I could wait to rinse till the next morning.

Next, the grey. It was already wound into a cake from my ballwinder, so we decided to just set it down in a vat of pure turquoise dye and see what happened. It soaked the dye up pretty well, and at the end, Emma poured a little more dye down the centre so it would be covered reasonably equally all over. We weren't going for full coverage, just an interesting effect.

The blah cotton got a direct sprinkling of dye powder in order to intensify what was there. Add water, let soak and then mordanted and heat set.

The final one was the Habu, and I left the color choice to Emma. She chose brilliantly. Look:


Both this and the pure silk were easy to rinse the next morning. Here's the pure silk. Yummy, non?


And then. The blah cotton? Well, it's still being rinsed. The dye won't stop coming out and my back can't keep up with it. No pics just yet.

But the chocolate cherry, I couldn't stop working on. I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed for most of yesterday morning. By noon, I was worn out, but there was still pale-sienna-colored dye water coming out from the skeins. The deep chocolate brown was long gone, but I had hope that I would still like it and really, just wanted to finish already. So I got desperate stupid. I disengaged my brain and thought, hey -- these skeins are tied up. I can put them in a lingerie bag in my washer! I machine wash my cotton sweaters, so why not give the yarn the same treatment.

This is why.



The three skeins came out as one, sorta. I was able to separate them into three again, and they're hanging to dry the rest of the way. There will be an untangling party one of these days, and since we're talking about cotton, I know it's totally doable. [With silk, it'd be a write off.] But it is a little disheartening. I should have taken a shot of the skeins as they came out of the ziplocks...they were gorgeous. Emma says we should have washed the skeins first so the dye would have taken better, and clearly she's right. But we didn't know!

Emma has also reminded me that Rit makes a dark brown dye and I can give that a shot, in spots. And I will. But just not yet.

So my conclusion: I love the act of dyeing. I was pleasantly surprised at how I didn't have to fight to get the look I wanted as I squirted the stuff here and there. It felt really creative and very finger-paint-y, in the best way.

I am, however, quite impatient and honestly a little lazy about the followthrough, and I don't think you can fudge that. So maybe stuff that doesn't fully exhaust [like silk does] isn't something I should be dyeing.

But what's more important -- I had a hell of a time with Emma, caught up on all sorts of stuff in her life and had amazing falafel and lentil rice from her favorite neighborhood place. Very good.

I knew something wasn't right

You know I'm a gear ho™, right? One of the reasons I love the Olympics, especially the winter Olympics, is the Roots gear they've made for the Canadian team in recent years. Especially the poorboy in 1998.

I saw the upcoming team's gear and thought...that's not quite right. But the big fuzzy hat is okay. And now I know why: it's designed by HBC, the people behind The Bay. My least favorite department store. It's bland. It's okay. It's not very cool.

Hub reminds me that The Hudson's Bay Company is more Canadian than Roots is. I will argue that they WERE, but they haven't been very Canadian for a long while. Plus, honestly, Roots is just cooler. And if you ask me to pick one reason why...it comes back to my roots. It's the typeface. You can make or break ANY swag with the typeface. There is no funk in that all-cap face.

Things I would like...

1. for someone to knit me a sweater like this one Rachael did for Lala, except with different motifs [as I'm not an exceptionally cool banjo player]. Maybe a nice moose. A maple leaf. A rabbit with a toque. Something Canadian.

2. soup. Would someone make me some soup?

I think these two are related. It's COLD today. You'd think it was November or something.

---

Newsy updates:

Sally Melville is an amazing, creative, funny woman. She also has a killer bod. She wore a little leotard top last night so that she could whip off what she was wearing [the cover sweater from her third book] and try on each piece as she talked about it. There were catcalls. I will neither deny nor confirm any involvement. Blame Emma.

---

I bought another spindle last night. Stop it. You'll find out why soon enough.

---

The Frappr map is freaking cool. It also doesn't work very well with OS 9, which is what I use at the office. But when I got home last night, all sorts of sweet faces were waving at me from all over the world. I love this! If you're not on yet, add yourself, please? I've been going around and doing the same with the blogs I read.

Here: I made a little less nauseating button. Feel free to steal [though you'll want to change the code for your own map]!


---

It seems some cool bloggers are discovering the pleasures of a pretty, mindless knit [not to be confused with a pretty mindless knit]. AKA a knitting project that takes little brainpower, is soothing to work on, shows off interesting yarn well, and is actually wearable when you're done. This makes me very happy.

---

Okay. Clearly no one is getting me any soup, so I'm going to get some myself. Later.

oh lord, i'm such a copycat

but seriously, might as well say hi! i wanna see your faces!

Do you crochet and design?

Then you'll want to read this -- a new crochet book by FoK (Friend of Knitty) Amy Swenson.

I don't crochet, but I wanna see this book!

Stuff!

Last night was post-office night. Me and a BIG HONKIN BOX of goodies [destined for Australia!], envelopes of calendars and Stitch & Bitch Handbooks headed out to the post office to tally up the damage.

So if you won a prize in any of our fall contests, you should receive it soon! Except, that is, for Amy B. in Australia. Because this box is REALLY, REALLY big, I had to send it surface. 4 weeks they tell me. [Amy B., when you see the postage label on the box, you'll understand. :-)] But I hope the REALLY BIGNESS of the box makes up for it.

---

Meanwhile, things are moving along quite well at Knitty Central. Lots and lots of coding and photoshopping and editing and all of that good stuff. It feels almost hypnotic to be doing this after months of agonizing over Big Girls. Making Knitty is something that comes quite naturally to me. Nice to remember that it feels good to do this again.

---

Sally Melville speaks at the DKC tomorrow. I can't wait!

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SATURDAY is the Crafternoon Tea in the beach. I'll be at the Naked Sheep's table from 2-5pm, so if you're coming, please stop by and say hi! I'll have to do my crafty shopping and shmoozing before I start, though -- or how else will I be able to sit still? I'll be bringing the Frog Tree cotton raglan to work on, though .

---

For the first time in a long time, I have no plans to travel anywhere in the near future, not even at the holidays. After a year of adventures including photo shoots and girly shopping trips and weddings and cruises in New York [and vicinity], life-changing [for the better] car accidents in Cape Cod, and a fiber festival I'll never forget, I'm really looking forward to just staying PUT for a little while.

Sunday afternoon, after a weekend of Knitty production, I sat down to watch an old episode Nigella Bites on TV. Pulled out the Frog Tree and started to knit. The oak out front still had its leaves, though they were all brown and crisp. The wind was blowing hard, making the branches dance. And I felt so incredibly calm and serene and realized it's been a long time since I've just stopped to enjoy. It was very, very good.

We've got a cover!

Ah, blessed doneness. This is the final cover. Look at that model. Is she not the hottest thing? That's Laura. Yes, her skin is really that gorgeous. We got to get up close to her. :-)

We've also gotten some feedback on the finished book from people Jillian and I respect and it's good. It was kind of exactly what we'd hoped for. We'll share when we can.

Also, I realized it was selfish of me not to do the proper bloggy thing: I must share my favorite Kiehl's products from Jillian's birthday gift, because they're amazing. I can't handle most scents and my skin is getting dryer each year as I get [cough] older. Last winter, it HURT, even with the moisturizers and gentle cleansers [like SpectroJel] I was using.

< Gentle foaming face cleanser. Absolutely my favorite of the new products. It feels so creamy on my skin and my face feels dewy even after it's dry. Will never give this up.

Bath and shower liquid body cleanser >. A very close second. It's weird -- it's very thin stuff but a small amount, maybe a teaspoon or two, of this watery liquid in my palm foams up really well when I rub my hands together and allows me to clean all of me. It's gentle, it rinses easily [unlike most other liquid cleansers] and my skin feels nice afterward. Big product love for this one.

Also big love for the Ultra facial moisturizer which goes on smooth and light and works really well on my dry face. And the adorably named Unusually Rich-But Not Greasy At All-Hand Cream with SPF 10 which is just what it says. Good for hands that need to be smooth to spin silk.

Concern: the original Kiehl's logo is properly typeset [and quite pretty!], which goes with a company whose heritage traces back to the 1800s.
But the current label? There's a freaking foot mark where the apostrophe should be. This is a very cool company. Why couldn't they get this tiny but important detail correct? Or is it an intentional kitsch detail? Would love to know.

Way to go, Ryan!

Didja see? Our very own Ryan Marnell got featured in a story on men who knit. Knitty got a mention too -- a very nice one.

Good one, Ryan!

Do you read the submission guidelines?

:-) They're fun, especially when I get to raise the honorarium and change the numbers in pink. Thanks to our advertisers and Ms Stephannie, our new Ad Manager, I'm able to move it up again. Go look.

I also continually fine tune the guidelines to make them clearer and simpler. So if you're a contributor, you should read them before you send in a submission each time.

WIPs.

We've got a lot of them at casaKnitty. Let's take stock:
- the brilliant pink summer tweed raglan cardie is on hiatus due to...
- the frog tree slate-colored cotton raglan v-neck, which is moving ahead at full steam [which means I'm halfway done the back]
- I've already mentioned the VK-based lace cardie in lime Trinity that's on long-term hiatus till mid-winter when I'm dying for spring to come [and it's got some problems with the math, so it will require some actual thought too]

and what else? That doesn't sound like much, compared to, say, Steph. But the rest of my WIPs are rolling about in my head, because most aren't even yarn yet.

One of them will be my version of this. Let me be clear: I can not POSSIBLY spin anything as beautiful as the handspun you can buy at Hello Yarn. But like a mother thinks her child is the most beautiful in the world, my inconsistent handspun is beautiful to me. And I really want to wrap myself in yarn I've made myself. This will likely be made from whatever comes off my wheel in the next while, since I'll need a lot of it to make anything worth wearing. Probably much of the Rhinebeck booty will find its way in there. That thought makes me very happy.

The other one is My So-Called Scarf, to be done from the product of my handspindles and hankies [patience, pet]. I was knitting this pattern in Schaefer's Laurel [100% cotton] on the way down to Rhinebeck and knew it was the wrong yarn, but loved the pattern. So I'll do it right this time.

So there you go. It's much more about the process than the product for me, at this point. Which is very unlike me. Being a one-project-at-a-time knitter [as I was for most of my knitting life] was clearly all about product. Now it's about choosing the thing to do with my hands that feels right at the time. Flow.

Oh, and Sally Melville, who explains the process of Flow so very well [and was the one who explained it to me, the first time I heard her at the DKC], will be at the DKC next Wednesday. I can't wait!

a good friend and indulgence

The weekend isn't even over yet, but I feel like I've had three good days of fun. Jillian was here. She came Friday afternoon, and we immediately plunged into the fiber frenzy that would overtake us the whole weekend. We started at the Sheep. Love that place. J loved the Fleece Artist roving.

Then we went back home, where I gave her the big bag of Rhinebeck goodness. The secret fiber? Bombyx silk/yak blend. She went "oooooh" and her eyes glazed over. I expect she'll give a fuller report on the contents of the bag when she arrives home. And she gave me my birthday present...a big BIG bag of Kiehl's products. Which she knew I'd wanted but would never buy myself. And they're so amazing that I will buy them myself from now on, because I now have skin that is as soft as babytushy and I will not give that up.

Friday night was burger and beer time at Quigley's -- a neighborhood classic that I've never actually gone to in all these years. They make good burgers. We had a funny waiter and sat next to an old guy who thought he was a sex god [long hair, open shirt and pointy cowboy boots] and his girlfriend.

Saturday? Lettuce Knit for more Fleece Artist Roving. First Markham Place for steamed buns, massive Totoro sightings and purchases and a visit to my favorite asian candy vendor. Pocky! And then...

Then. We drove north. Up up up hwy 404 till it ended, and we turned right...towards Mount Albert. Are you seeing where this is going? Yes. We actually got to visit the local holy grail of fiber fanatics: Gemini Fibres. They're usually only open during my work hours, during the week. But they said we could come up because they were having a class and we could shop along with the students once they were done.

Gemini is located in a large building on the same property as the owners' home, overlooking a pond. Beautiful, even in the rain, with the leaves glowing gold all around us, but we didn't much notice. We peeped in the door and saw THREE RACKS of hand spindles. They let us in, and the damage began.

J bought a Forrester granny, alpaca that had come from a four-legged beast named Rachelle, polwarth, and silk. I bought TWO SPINDLES [a Forrester pink stripy colorwork and a yellowheart linum] and a huge pile of undyed silk hankies for cheep.

What? J and A -- the girls who H.A.T.E. spindles -- bought spindles? Yes, we did. Something happened at Rhinebeck that made me realize I could love my spindle. [What? Read the next Knittyspin.] And J ordered a new Bosworth to join in the spindle party and found she doesn't hate them any more either.

Jillian is now the Spindlewarrior. Do not mess with her, because she is armed with wood and poky bits of metal and spun merino and she will kick your ass. And I am now the surprised spindle-loving silk ho™ who can't wait till Knitty comes out so I can tell you more about the hankie thing.

Oh, and my wheel? It came a while ago and I was scared to touch it, kinda. I broke its cherry last night. I like.

J is on a train now, headed west, listening to her iPod. The rabbits and I miss her already.

Almost time for No Sheep!

Have you joined the No Sheep For You designer mailing list yet? The call for submissions should be going out later today. Sign up now!

In case you missed the note earlier, this is the working title for my third book, which will focus on knitting without wool (and most other animal fibers). To be published by Interweave Press. Spread the word and let your non-wool designer friends know that we're looking for them!

[Now that Big Girl Knits is basically put to bed, I am getting really excited about this book. I can't wait to get into it!]