Since last we chatted...

...more has happened than I can possibly blog. Let's go to the bullet points!

• the magical Sock Summit
• a lovely vacation trip with my mom and sister
• the fall issue of Knitty, celebrating 7 years of Knitty goodness and a gentle redesign
• a trip to The Knitting Nest in a really comfy, not-hot Austin, TX [I didn't think the not-hot was possible!]
• a trip to WEBS -- New England in early fall [heaven!]
  

You already know about Sock Summit [see the post below for wrap-up links all over the web], and the vacation was much needed.

The fall issue of Knitty was the result of months of planning, work and not a little fretting. We're all glad you like it, very! It was a huge relief to go live...a redesign of any sort is always a bigger undertaking than you envision until you're right in the mucky middle of it. I learned a lot, that's for sure.

The Knitting Nest was just a lovely, warm place full of great yarn and nice people. You know the reputations Texans have for hospitality -- well, Stacy and her crew [and her charming husband and daughter!] took more than excellent care of me. We had a great class and a lovely party to celebrate their anniversary and poof, I was home before I knew it!

I've been traveling mostly camera-less lately. Too much to shlep with the uke, I guess. But I did take a few pics with the iPhone on my last trip -- to WEBS -- and you've gotta see them.

WEBS itself is really indescribable. It has nearly everything from every company that makes yarn, and even the work of some smaller hand-dyers. Bags, tools, spinning things, weaving things. And then there's the back room where the bags of discounted yarnish goodies reside, and it's hard not to walk around with your mouth open. For a long time. Just wow. I was so stunned by it all, I took not a single picture inside the shop. But here's their highway billboard:



I had a great Plug & Play shawl design class with really excited and motivated students, and a lovely No Sheep lecture the night before. I bought a sweater's worth of, not kidding, Berroco Comfort worsted, to make this [rav link], and a little yarn for a few friends. On my last afternoon, it was decided that I needed to see a little of the surrounding area

My tour guides, Karen [the lovely shop manager] and Melissa Morgan-Oakes [who I'd never met before this trip, despite us being in the same places more than once over the years] made sure I got a little infusion of New England before I went home. Yankee Candle? Sure! A quick stop at Scandihoovians, yup! But here was the highlight of our spontaneous road trip:


I know that logo. No way. Lexie Barnes' showroom is within driving distance of WEBS? I freaked out.


Here's Lexie with samples from her brand-new line. And I finally got to put my hands on it...folks, the fabric we all know and love is BACK! The nearly bulletproof fabric that is the friend of knitting and the enemy of spills. It feels so solid and smooooth, and look at her new prints!

The little shiny thing in her hand? That's her brand-new circular needle case. It's brilliant! The page on her website doesn't give a hint at the insides, so this is your sneak peek! Lots and lots of pages to hold your needles and way more, plus it zips closed so nothing escapes. Wow.


Another [slightly blurry, sorry] pic of the new goodies. The Kiri print looks bright red on her site, but it really is this deep burgundy color, so I wanted you to see.

One of the other things I've been excited to see is Lexie's new bag shape, the McCoy.


Now, this print is called Lotus and it's not on her site because the factory screwed up and the color isn't what she'd ordered. I personally love the color as is, but Lexie is the designer, and what she says goes! Meanwhile, if you like this pattern, you can grab it if you move fast. Lexie is having a sample sale, this coming Saturday (Oct 3) from 10-5. She'll have bags in this Lotus fabric (limited quantity of course), special deals on sample Classic Lexie totes, and other surprises.

Anyway, back to the McCoy -- yup, she gave me one of them to take home with me and you'll never guess what fits inside this bag:


That's my sopranino ukulele. Fits in perfectly, with tons of room to spare for yarn and everything else a traveling knitter might want. My full review of the bag will be in the winter issue of Knitty, but I just couldn't keep my lips zipped about this one, especially for those who are close enough to grab a sample at the sale this weekend.

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So that's a very spotty, very shwag-oriented catch-up post. I'm home for a two-month stretch now and you may see a little more action on the blog than you're used to.

I need to be packing...

So of course I'm going to write a blog post instead!

Hello, blog! How are you? I've thought about you more frequently in the last few days. Lots to talk about! [I promise not to continue this anthropomorphication of the blog any further. It's getting creepy already.]

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If you've been following my Twitter feed, you know I've been in a Sock Summit preparation frenzy for the last month. I understand many of the other instructors have been similarly focused/freaked out and it's a bit of a comfort. See, these are two brand-new classes I'm teaching at Sock Summit: simultaneously exciting and terrifying. I can't even begin to go into everything that's been running through my head, so I just won't.

I do know that I'm looking forward to Thursday night when I will have finished teaching each class once, and can breathe a little easier. I want to kick ass with these classes [without actually kicking anyone in the ass, because I don't think the students would like that].

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It didn't occur to me that I might need to get a massage before the trip because my neck and upper back would seize up, so I didn't book one. And I guess my favorite miracle worker is away for the weekend, so oh well. We pulled out the Thumper and hub went to town and it has helped!

I'll book her for when I return. Because man, will I have earned it!

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You probably know I think the internet is a wonderful place, and this next story just proves it once again.

I'm enamored [understatement] with the ukulele. I adore playing it -- not that I'm fabulous, just that it makes me SO HAPPY. Here's a little something my BUFFs [best uke friends forever] and I worked up a few weekends ago...Take the Skinheads Bowling. Original version by the incomparable Camper Van Beethoven. Our take is the world premiere of our new girl group: No Skanks On Sunday.

One thing girl uke players have to deal with is that our natural appendages get in the way of holding the uke flat against our chest like guys get to do. This makes it harder for us to play -- or some of us, anyway. So I posted a query on my favorite ukulele forum asking if anyone had ever tried to alter the architecture of the ukulele to accommodate our protrusions, and the discussion didn't go south...it got really positive, constructive and interesting, really quick! Here's the thread in case you're interested.

The summary: the back and forth discussion prompted one forum member to ask about making a concave-backed uke, which I thought was a brilliant idea. After the jokes about custom cup-sized ukes were finished [can't blame them], up stepped a skilled and kind luthier who wanted to give it a shot. In fact, he offered to build a prototype for me and just send it to me. As a gift.

I was floored. His name is Brad Donaldson and you can google him, but you won't find much right now. I offered to build him a website for his work as a thank you, and he's accepted...so that makes me really happy. [No, I won't start work on it until fall Knitty has gone live, promise.] Brad lives about an hour and a half outside of Portland [you know, where SOCK SUMMIT is being held this week?]. So tomorrow, when I get off the plane, I'll be heading to pick up my rental car and driving out to get my brand-new first-ever concave-back ukulele.

Once Brad got into working on this project, he was on fire. Every day, I got a progress e-mail with pictures. He started upgrading the wood he was using, because he could tell it was working out well and he wanted it to be even prettier than he'd planned at first. So instead of solid mahogany [which is fabulous enough], it's now mahogany and quilted maple with rosewood trim and abalone fret markers and his logo. Here, some pictures of the uke without the finish on:







and the money shot:



Look at the curve in that back! He's already strung it up and says it sounds great, and since then, has applied a gorgeous gloss finish which has been curing for the last few weeks. Tomorrow, I get to pick it up and play it. I am so excited, it's hard to think straight.

I'll post pics when I'm back home in a week, so you can enjoy it with me, but if you follow the Twitter feed, you'll see a snapshot or two as soon as I have it. For Sock Summit attendees who are curious, yes, it'll be with me all the time during the week so you can peek at it.

I'm also quite certain that Brad will build one of these for other people as well. I believe he's already started on a few. So I'll share his contact details when it's okay with him.

Like I said, the internet is an amazing place where great things happen.

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Underwear is washing, suitcases pulled out of hiding and my new treat to myself for this trip is ready to be loaded: it's an ePac rolling backpack. Key feature for me: easy access pocket for my laptop so when I get to airline security, I don't have to unpack my bag to get at it. [The bag I've had for the last 3 years only works when the laptop is on the bottom of everything else. Ack!]

I already feel my travel mood improving as a result. I'm just tired of fighting with luggage in front of every xray machine.

There's room in it for a little spindle and fiber, some knitting and even a pocket at the very back for my class handouts, so it's the perfect travel bag. And cheap at $79.

So there you have it. My pre-trip update. There will be no WWW news this week, for obvious reasons. Mel is going to collect more good stuff for the next week and it'll go up when I'm back.

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I'm looking forward to meeting all sorts of people this week, and hope everyone has a great time at the Summit. And for those not going, I'm quite certain that the benefits of this event will trickle down to the entire sock-knitting community in the form of new patterns, books and ideas that we can all share.

Have a great week, everyone!

You've got to hear this guy

YouTube - Buck Nix & Queenie Wahine -- worldwide debut!

I am posting this so you can see two things:
1: I didn't fall down while playing backup at the latest uke night and actually was enjoying myself.

2: My musical partner, David, kicks ass, and I really want people to hear him. He wrote the song we're playing, sings with a fabulous bass voice, does killer solos, and is a nice guy on top of that.

The two of us are working to combat long-term stage fright and it gets a little better for us each time we go up there. [When I was a teenager, I competed in the Kiwanis Music Festival on flute and was so nervous that my hands went completely numb as I was playing. Yick.]

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I'm sure some of you wonder what is up with all the uke talk here. Well, when your hobby is your business and almost all of your friends are involved in that hobby/business, it makes for a rather one-sided life. I adore my knitting life and my knitting friends and wouldn't want to live without them. But I find that pursuing this uke thing makes me appreciate both sides even more.

I've never subscribed to the "this is only a knitting blog" concept. For those that do, it's cool, but if I'm gonna share what's happening around here, I'd rather share the full picture. Except for the private bits, because who wants to read that? No, you really don't want to. Trust me.

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Okay, one last uke thing and then I'll go, with the promise that my next post WILL be about knitting. I've got stash enhancement photos from Maryland to share. And progress photos on my latest tube scarf. Yummah.

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That little uke <-- over on the left? That's my newest baby. It's the one I'm playing in the video. It's an Ohana Sopranino, which means it's shorter than a standard Soprano uke by about 2". Proportionally narrower, as well.

I have freakishly small hands, and this uke is a great fit. It's also a perfect travel uke, since it weighs almost nothing and is just super teeny. And it sounds great. For those who care, David tested the intonation [this is a test of the accuracy of the notes it produces right down to the bottom of the fretboard] and it beat his classic 1920s Martin Soprano [which is saying something].

You guys have the best ideas.

So in the comments to my last post, out comes Stacy with a brilliant idea. Knitty post-its for LYS owners, customized to make referring their customers to a Knitty pattern as easy as possible.

Design done. Order goes in Monday. It's a brilliant idea and I'm not the least bit bothered that I didn't think of it myself. Knitty has always been all about collaboration, and dammit if this isn't just more proof of it.

I've got a few other things I'm stocking up on as well and when it's all ready, I'll let you know so if you need some, you can get some!

Thank you, Stacy, for the lightbulb! I'm looking forward to thanking you in person one of these days :-)

The great joy of the after-Knitty rush

Rush as in endorphin rush [not as in "Rush! You must go somewhere!" because I've just done that mentally for 3 solid weeks]. There is this weird feeling when I put a new issue up for the world to see. First, there are little things that always need fixing. Always. Then people send in the loveliest notes and that is such a fine, fine way to spend an afternoon. Often, a nap follows [more like a passing out with relief, but usually in nap form].

The next day...what the heck do I do with myself? If you read this blog, you'll notice that I start to make lists of all the things I want to do that I couldn't do until the issue was live. So why break with tradition? Here's the list!

- In the middle of the production crunch, Claudia blogged about a sale on Grafton Fibers Darn Pretty Needles [DPNs...get it?]. They'd been out of my price range -- justifiably, since they're not only gorgeous, but totally handmade in Vermont -- but at the sale price? I ordered two sets. Checking their site today, I see there's a new colorway on sale. OOOh, so tempting.

- So what will I do with my brand-new DPNs? Well, there's this big sock thingy I'm lucky enough to be teaching at. And I have got a lot of socks to knit before August, so I'm going to get started! Knitting on pretty handmade needles makes everything even better.

- I'm eyeing the ugly living-room curtains with the same critical eye I took to our naked dining-room window after the last issue was finished. Time to get out the Bernina again! Just waiting for the right fabric to show up at Ikea.

- I have two gorgeous bags of hand dyed silk roving bought at Rhinebeck last fall. I am going to spin and ply all of it on my Ladybug in a reasonable amount of time. It's only 4 oz [though in silk, 4 oz goes a long way]. Will! Do! It!

- The ukulele group I belong to has a rather primitive forum architecture and I have been given supreme administrative powers to slap it into shape. The software is fine, it's just that the nice guys who set it up are musicians first. :-) Am scared I'll make it all go boom, so am taking my time.

- I need to design new Knitty shwag.

- I need to prepare for Maryland, because this year I AM GOING! I know it's crazy busy crowded with spinners and knitters and not as familiar to me as every inch of Rhinebeck is, but that's half the fun. Plus I'm going as part of Jennie the Potter's posse, which means I get in a day early to help her set up. And maybe map out the grounds a little to know what's where.

- I have a few big ideas for Maryland. Watch this space. I'm not telling yet.

- And I'm knitting, really. The top-down raglan in Lorna's Laces new Pearl yarn is going along swimmingly. Amy Swenson, new resident of Toronto [yay!!] and I are working on the design together. It's very simple, designed to take advantage of the drape of the non-woolly fibers in the yarn. Pictures forthcoming, promise.

And now I need to get to it!

By the way, I know my blogging has been pretty spotty for a while, and though part of it is due to the requirements of magazine production, most of it is due to Twitter. It's so easy to whip off a few sentences and maybe attach a single picture that it makes blogging seem ever so much harder. :-)

For those with RSS-feed readers, if you care to read the Twitterings of a geek knitting magazine editor, you'll find the feed here: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/18513281.rss

I will not be abandoning the blog, no sir! But I am loving the Twitter.

Sock Summit 2009. Yo.

Okay, so everyone else in the interweberverse has blogged this already, so you might already know, but just in case...

I'm on the teacher list for Sock Summit 2009! Also [!!!] This is flattering and exciting enough, being asked to teach by such illustrious organizers and knitting icons [aka Blue Moon Tina and Stephanie/Harlot and the goddess Cat]. But Steph warned me when she called to discuss details that the teacher list would blow my brains out, and it has.

There are designers who I've gotten to publish in Knitty but never had a chance to meet in person. There are designers I've published AND met. There are lots of people I've admired for a very long time and wanted to meet. And of course, there are good friends from all over who will be gathered in one place at one time, both teachers and students.

This promises to be an unforgettable experience. I am so honored to be included and so excited about what will take place in Portland that weekend.

Plus it means I get to drink Stumptown again.

Independent designers and independent magazines go together like tortilla chips and salsa...

...or insert your favorite food combination here.

So there's been a whole lot of discussion on the web about the struggles of independent knitting designers, the challenges of those who publish the work of independent designers, and everything that relationship means. The discussion is explained here. It's a complex issue, and one made more challenging by the innovative possibilities the internet makes available to designers and knitters alike.

Knitty has a unique place in the designer->magazine->knitter continuum, and that's on purpose. I started Knitty in order to publicize and support the work of independent designers who were giving it away for free on their blogs. You can read what I wrote in the first issue here. Happily, Knitty grew quickly from a sweet, tiny thing into a robust magazine, thanks to the support of indie designers, a growing number of readers, and the final piece of the puzzle: our advertisers.

Since day one, Knitty has always been clear on one thing: the work of each designer and author belongs to THEM, not to us. They allow us to publish their work exclusively for a short 3-month period on our website in exchange for a modest honorarium. Afterwards, they do with it as they please, which means their work can continue to generate revenue for them. The other thing we offer to independent designers is, frankly, a huge audience -- 2.7 million site visits in December 2008.

I am so proud of the designers we've featured over the years, some who want careers as designers, and some who just have great knitting ideas. This kind of independent, spontaneous creativity is what I want to be able to continue to share through Knitty for many, many years to come.

I was really touched to read this post that Shannon Okey wrote about Knitty on this topic. She writes about how she's supporting Knitty and why she thinks that support is important.

There are many ways to support Knitty.
Designers and authors do it by sharing their work with us and our readers.

Readers can do it by:

• clicking on the ads in our issues and shopping with our advertisers when they need knitting supplies or want a treat. Since Knitty is free to readers because of our advertisers, this is the most important way readers can show their support!
  
  
• visiting our Knittyshop, where each sale sends a few dollars directly to Knitty...and when you wear Knitty gear, you help promote the magazine, too!
  
  
• joining our grassroots marketing team by telling knitters and yarn shops about Knitty when you come across someone who's never heard of us. We've got a simple letter-sized flyer that you can print, cut up and pass out when you need to...you'll find it here.
  

People have been writing me for quite a while, asking if they could send a financial contribution directly to Knitty as well. After reading Shannon's post, it seemed time for me to put a Tip Jar on the counter. Does it feel strange to do this? Um, yeah. But I also know what it's like to be on the other side -- wanting to show your appreciation for something you love in a tangible way.

If you'd like to support Knitty with a donation, here's what to do:

1. To use a Paypal account or a credit card, click on the Send some love to Knitty! button above. You'll be able to fill in the amount you wish to send and then complete the transaction.

2. To send a check/cheque, payable to Knitty Magazine, here's our address:

Knitty Magazine
2255b Queen Street East
#527
Toronto ON
M4E 1G3

Because Knitty is not a charitable organization, your donation is not tax deductible. Our donors names and e-mail addresses are kept strictly confidential, but the Knitty editorial staff will know you've donated and we all thank you for your support!

Writing this post reminds me, once again, how lucky Jillian, Mandy and I feel to have knitters, yarn companies, yarn shops, publishing companies and other craftspeople wanting to support independent design and publishing in general, and Knitty specifically. And that this little magazine I started more than 6 years ago, because of a passion for knitting and knitters, and a desire to work with people I care about and admire, has become important to so many people.

oh. my.

Look where I am!

Okay, I'm not there now, but I was there this afternoon. The Tucson Desert Museum. This was taken out the car window [!] on the way there.

Want more? Here you go.

For those not following the Twitter storyline, here's what's happened since I last wrote.

- Was in transit from Toronto to Tucson, via LAX for 14 hours.
- My luggage decided it didn't want to go. I was wearing the same clothing for the first two days [though I was able to wash the stuff overnight so it wasn't ewwww]
- Taught a full day Plug & Play Shawl Design class without my swatches [see point above] and having to reprint all the class handouts [again, see above]. It went well, despite that.
- Luggage arrived last night. Have been wearing new clothing ever since. Happy.
- Temporarily lost my wallet/iPhone/everything when I got distracted by hummingbirds at the Desert Museum and put down my wrist-strap purse.
- Ran off the calories I would later consume in buttery homemade tortilla chips [SO GOOD you don't want to know] trying to find it.
- Grateful to the person who found it right away and brought it to the admin office, so I wasn't without my essentials for very long.

So that about catches you up. Highlights for the next few days:

- I get to meet the Tucson Handweavers and Spinners Guild tomorrow for lunch!
- I get to visit a store that stocks Flax Clothing in my size and maybe even buy some. I survived last summer thanks to the beauty of their easy and relaxed linen clothing.
- I get to visit a store that carries ukuleles! Just because I can! And because the flute fund still has a little balance in it. You know.

Hope you all are well! I have something really cool to share with you, but I'll save that for another post.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I always knew Amanda of Lorna's Laces had a big heart, and now we've got photographic proof.

[Amanda knit her huge heart out of Lorna's Shepherd Bulky in the color Red Rover, following the Knitty pattern for everything except gauge. Love it!]

Hope you have a love-filled day! Hug someone!

Attention Arizona fiber friends!

This has been so long in coming [we started planning last summer] that it's hitting me as surreal...but in 2 weeks, I'm going to be teaching in Tucson!

Why did we choose February? Because that's the month when Northerners feel most comfortable. I almost melted in the blast-furnace beauty of Albuquerque in June a few years ago, so I have learned my lesson. :-) Temperature this week: 75F. Heaven.

I'll be teaching loads of classes at Purls Tucson, hanging with Old Pueblo Knitters, spinners and weavers, and it's all going to be a crazy blur of a week.

There are more events listed in the schedule of the Tucson Handweavers and Spinners Guild, including the No Sheep lecture, the booksigning at Purls Tucson, and a Spin-In [!] at Kiwi Knitting Company.

I'm really excited! I also get to spend time with my friend Heather and her family, which is a significant bonus.

If you've wanted to take any of my classes and are in driving distance of Tucson, now's a good time to sign up! I can't wait to meet y'all!

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Boy, do I need a pedicure.

A little skin for a good cause

Okay. So about a month ago [really, just a month ago], as I was getting ready to go to the airport and fly to Calgary to teach at the Make One retreat, a group of women came over to my house, stripped my living room [and me] bare, redecorated us both and had a little photoshoot.

Uh-whuh?? Yup. The genius women behind The Purple Purl, spearheaded by the insane fearless Miko [that's her in her redheaded glory on the right over there], decided at the 11th hour to do a naked knitter calendar to benefit an important charity. Yours truly was drafted to be Miss March.

The rest of the calendar is truly beautiful. [I'll let you decide for yourself what you think of my page, but I'll tell you that it's a rare picture of myself that I like, and I really like this one.] It's full of knitters of all ages and both genders. The mom of our Tushy Cushy model is featured in all her natural glory while wee Morgana was still tucked safely inside -- she was born a week later.

There is gorgeous knitting on every page -- though my page is more about yarn pr0n than finished objects -- and it's an absolutely beautiful and tasteful representation of our craft.

As the cover pic [above] and the little peek at my page [left] shows, none of our private bits show in this calendar. Carefully placed yarn and knitting did wonders for helping to maintain a minimum level of modesty.

Wanna see my pic bigger? BUY A CALENDAR! :-)

P.S. 90% of the yarn in this photo came from my stash. erp.

You have to have one of these calendars, don't you? Of course you do! Here are the details:

The Purple Purl is looking to raise a whole lot of funds for the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation -- Canada’s leading cancer research hospital. The calendars cost $20 Cdn each.

Thanks to generous donations from partners in the yarn world as well as the time, energy and expertise of the models, photographers and helpers means that 100% of the proceeds are going to the Foundation. Your $20 purchase of each calendar will go directly to the Foundation. We think that's kickass.

Are you in or near Toronto?
Get your copy at The Purple Purl - 1162 Queen Street E @ Jones. 416-463-1162.

Can't get to Toronto?
They're very glad to take phone or e-mail orders!

Within Canada: $20 Cdn plus $5.50 Shipping & Handling
In the US: $20 Cdn plus $9.50 Shipping & Handling

Phone: 416-463-1162
E-mail: thepurplepurl@gmail.com

The shop closes xmas eve and stays closed till New Year's day,
so if you'd like one, better take care of it today!

Let's sell out every last copy of the calendar and send a huge $10,000 check to the Foundation on behalf of knitters all over the world!

You thought I was kidding?

We really do have a lot of shops that specialize in down products, many of them started by European immigrants to Canada in middle of the 20th century. Some are big chains, but I love finding an independent shop where they really understand their craft.

How do you find such luxuries in Canada? Why, simply visit the website of The Down Association of Canada. That's where I found Daniadown -- the company I bought the twin duvets from earlier this year. I'm not sure where I'll be taking the two-pillow project, but that's what the whole winter is for.

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Meanwhile, it's quiet around the blog and you guys know why. We're on the new server now and, knock wood, all seems to be as promised. Hub is going happynuts with programming things he was unable to on the old server. My happy geek boy.

Speaking of my geek boy, question: I've blindly cast on [after swatching and getting gauge] for a pair of kilt hose. I have 4 balls of Bulky Fixation and I'm wondering if that will be enough for his size-10 feet. Does anyone have any feedback for me?

[He doesn't read the blog. He's very much NOT a blog boy.]

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I'm picking up a special present at the airport today. I'm selfishly excited to have my good friend moving here. I know the next few months will be a challenge for her and Sandra, but I'm hoping I can help a little.

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Okay, head back down!

The story in photos

This is Lake Louise, Alberta. It is possibly the most breathtaking place I've ever been to. Even prettier than Emerald Lake, if that's possible.

Lots of pictures for you to peek at, including Banff and -- most importantly -- the reason I was there: the Make 1 Yarns Fall Retreat students, teachers, their knitting and lots of fun. There's also the special Make 1 Retreat colorway on Lorna's Laces Amy-Friendly Yarn [!], in case a little yarn pr0n will help get you through your day. The other instructors at the event were Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Stefanie Japel, Nancy Bush and Cookie A, and everyone came out of their classes glowing and motivated. It was really exciting to see.

I taught my Plug & Play class, and it was great to see the students grabbing on to the concept and running with it. One of them [Jeneane] even got so far in her shawl that she snapped a picture and uploaded it to Ravelry before the class was over!

It was an absolutely fabulous retreat, super-organized and fun, because of Amy and Sandra, the owners of Make 1 Yarns, organizers of this retreat. They took care of every detail and are most generous hostesses. 92 happy, smiling students can't be wrong.

I hope I get the chance to do it again next year!

i was away.

And you might not even have known it.

Here's where I was:



More soon.

if you are a US citizen, you have only one thing to do today.

and it's not knitting*.


It's not just your right to vote, it's your responsibility as a citizen of the United States. Drop me a comment when you're done and I will give you a yay out loud in the Knitty offices!

I voted absentee in September. Now it's just the waiting.

*in case there's a line up at your polling station, you should totally bring your knitting. I would!

in aid of election eve/day harmony, Cat Bordhi stylee

Cat Bordhi sent me a note today that pointed all of us to her online Moebius tutorial [above] as a metaphor for unity. In her e-mail, she wrote, "...I hope that you will be able to send it on to knitting friends as it may bring peace to them during the next few days, regardless of their political viewpoints. And it may help support the world to regain a sense of grace and true humanity."

If you have never done a Cat Bordhi-style moebius, never tried to learn her unique and brilliant [but potentially intimidating until you actually DO it] cast on, you now have no excuse not to give it a shot. The video above will help you get there.

To read her whole message including design and yarn suggestions, click here. For those who like it short and sweet, here's what I think is the pithiest bit:

So - here is why the Moebius is a perfect expression of the best of humanity, and the healing of the fractured country and world that I trust is coming:

1. The Moebius *appears* to have two surfaces and two edges - ie, polarities such as black and white, right and wrong, good and bad, Republican and Democrat - but when you follow the surface around you will run right into your starting point without ever having changed to the other "side." For there isn't one. Everything flows into itself. Polarities are an illusion. What lies beneath the apparent polarities is oneness, beauty, and grace. In a Moebius you can see it, hold it, be awed by it. Once the frenzy dies down, hopefully those with opposing views will slowly rediscover their common humanity.

I love how Cat's brain works. How lucky we are to have her as one of us.

I'll be casting on a new moebius tonight. Who's with us?

what Julia saw

At Rhinebeck, I was a little light on the camera, but thankfully Julia picked up the slack in one crucial area. Amy + Jillian pictures.

My favorite is the last one.

Rhinebeck 2008 encapsulates the glory of fall.

I've been to Rhinebeck three times now, and this year was the first that really felt like fall. Brilliant fall colors and a significant chill in the air. In fact, I was so programmed by previous visits where knitwear = shvitz that I underpacked and missed two great silk sweater days. Yes, it was that cold.

For those who'd rather look than read, the full photostream is here. For the rest of you, a brief walking tour.


I met many new-to-me Knitty and Knittyspin readers this trip. This group of glowingly happy women were just the first 3 out of a whole group of them. Happy friends getting to hang together. That's what Rhinebeck means to me. [That sounded like the title of a grade 5 essay, didn't it? Sorry.]


My friend Jennie the Potter -- that's her on the right -- made her first professional appearance at Rhinebeck this year and her booth was continually full of jaw-dropped fiber freaks.


Watch for more on Jennie's newest offerings in the winter issue of Knitty.


I finally got to meet Lynne Vogel, who was as fun as this picture suggests.


Of course, I got to hang with Jillian [far right] and Carla [far left], as well as the bonus hanging with Kay and Ann [and Ann's friend Kelly] as we lined up and lunched on chicken pot pies.


Not all girls, though! Stephen, Franklin [sometimes] and Sean were Scout's unofficial posse as she made her way through her first Rhinebeck, which means I got to see a lot of them.

My pictures are pretty lame when it comes to capturing most of my friends, though. Like where are pictures of me and Scout? Me and anyone, for that matter? For some reason, I was living the fun, not thinking about blogging it. I guess that's not so bad, but it doesn't make for a very electrifying blog post. :-)

Speaking of Scout, she picked me up at the Newark airport and we got to drive to Rhinebeck and back together. It was so good to have a little time with her, since she lives so danged far away, and we laughed a lot. We also found the best pickle [sour new dill] on Route 17 in New Jersey. I will be dreaming of that pickle for a long time.

I didn't make it to any big meetups or the Rav party. I was feeling a little insular and wanted to be with a smaller group of friends this time. I still got to meet tons of people as I walked all through the grounds, and that was great!

Every single button and sticker was passed out to Knitty fans and a lot of you guys were much less shy than you've been in the past. Rock on! You know, you never have to apologize for coming up to say hi or that you like Knitty. That's the nicest thing I can ever hear. And I heard it a lot this weekend. So thank you to each and every person who took the time to poke me on the shoulder and grin at me. I send you all hugs.

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There are two more Rhinebeck posts coming. Stay tuned!

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Anyone notice anything different about the blog?

off to Rhinebeck!

To those not going, I totally understand what it feels like. I had to read about Rhinebeck twice as a bystander before I decided I couldn't stand not to go the next time it came around. If you can't come this year, maybe next year!

For those going, I just wanted you to know that I'll be packing the Knitty swag bag which is, this time, full of Knitty buttons and Euro stickers. We've also got brand new Knittyspin buttons to celebrate the official Knittyspin launch. So if you see Jillian or I walking around the fair, don't be shy. Ask for a button!

Travel spinning: my Houndesign laceweight spindle + some sort of tussah from my stash.
Travel knitting: restarted toe-up sock -- 2nd of a pair! -- just inches from the bind off and my top-down raglan in my Amy Friendly yarn.

Hope everyone travels safely! See you on the flip side!

in knitting news...

There are no words to describe how much I love Ann and Kay right now.

You girls are righteous. [Where did you get the wigs? If you tell me they were your mamas', I think I'll faint.]

Blue Moon nooz!

Did you wonder how my Blue Moon sweater was going? I can't imagine you did, but for the sake of ongoing knitting content -- and because it's SO GORGEOUS -- here's where I'm at. This picture is quite color accurate -- the colorway is Gypsum, and the yarn is Luscious Silk, a recent addition to the line at Blue Moon! [I get very excited when my favorite yarn companies start adding Amy-friendly yarns to their lines, as you can tell.]


Sadly for me, I didn't start knitting from two different skeins until, well, you can see where I did, and that's just life. It'll make the right front look like an, um, art piece. Yeah, that's just what I meant to do! [snork.] The pattern is Kristi Porter's Sonnet, transfigured into lace to make the yarn I have go further, and because silk is warmer than wool, so solid silk would be steamy to wear! Toes included in the shot for scale.

I'm halfway [or more] through the back and progress is quite speedy. I keep getting motivated to get to the solid-knit row pair in the super-simple lace repeat, which keeps moving me forward.

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Speaking of all things Blue Moon, have you heard about this? It's going to be so insanely cool. Sounds like a cannot-miss event of a lifetime! I wanna go.

are you going to one of Neil Gaiman's upcoming signings? and more about all sorts of yarn!

He's not coming anywhere near Canada, but he IS going all over the US and onwards. Does anyone who reads this blog plan on going and getting an autographed copy of the new Graveyard Book? If so, would it be possible for you to buy a copy of his book for me and have it signed, too? Of course I'll pay the cost of the book, postage and I'll send you some beauty yarn as a thank you.

For those who love Neil, but didn't know about the tour, here is a post with all the dates/times/locations:

Neil Gaiman's Journal: The Graveyard Book Tour

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We are just a few days away from the next Yarn Roundtable and we have a few spaces left. If you're going to be in Toronto this Thursday night, we'd love to have you join us! Visit the Yarn Roundtable blog and leave a comment to the September post to RSVP.

I have heard rumors about a home-baked chocolate cake making an appearance. It would be criminal to miss it.

Amy's Vintage Office on Silk/Bamboo

I can't hold this in any longer.

This is the Lorna's Laces colorway on the gorgeousness that is 51% silk, 49% bamboo and oh.

Just oh.

This colorway was inspired by vintage enamelled steel office furniture and accessories in a variety of shimmery, glowing colors, and this shimmery silk/bamboo version is exactly what I had hoped for. Better, even, with Beth's exquisite sense of color, flow and balance. I am in deep love. Click the picture to see it larger. Yum.

Read more about this yarn and how it will only be available for a limited time from Lorna's Laces.*

Contact your LYS and ask them to get it for you. And then come back here and show me what you knit with it! I'm multitasking, but promise to show a knitted swatch asap!

*if this stuff sells really well, it might encourage Beth to keep it in the lineup full time. I dream of being able to get Lorna's Laces colorways on Amy-friendly yarn and I can't be the only one. Speak with your wallets, knitters, and tell Beth you love the new non-woolly Lorna's and want to see more of it!

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eta: Kim Werker, crochet goddess and editor, was at Lorna's this week, and look at the pic she took! I forgot my camera on the Chicago trip, so even though she didn't do it for me, thanks for taking this pic, Kim!

if you can't find it, make it yourself!

I've gone to Rhinebeck twice and every time -- as an avowed hoodie junkie -- have been disappointed by the merch they offer. It's very old-school and if you like sweats with watercolor paintings of sheep on them, then you will think I'm crazy. I couldn't even find one with a cool logo + image [i think they do a new one each year] from the festival like you can get at Maryland.

I personally favor the old-school big name in arched letters style if I have to pick. So dangit, I made one for all of us, and it's now in the Knittyshop in case you want one, too. Jillian will be thrilled -- I drove her crazy with the "where are the Rhinebeck hoodies? I must find a Rhinebeck hoodie!" last time we went.

p.s. YES, I know Rhinebeck is about yarn and spinning and making things to wear. But sometimes a sweater isn't what you want, and nothing makes for the cozies except a big, comfy hoodie. Yum.

i has a color.

And it has a name: Amy's Vintage Office. Have you seen the new Color Commentary series from Lorna's Laces? Well, it was just one color until we got mine done -- Franklin's Panopticon, which is an insanely cool combination of yumminess, was the first. Now that there are two of us, it's definitely a series! [I hear there are many more colors to come from famous knitting folk all over the place!]

So Beth, who runs Lorna's, asked me to describe my dream colorway to her, and as she writes, it took us a while to get there. I thought I wanted one thing, which was bright and crazy. But then it turned out that what I really wanted was for Beth to encapsulate one of my big loves -- vintage office furniture -- into yarn colors. The mainstay, of course, is my huge charcoal steel desk. The rest are aspirational items -- things that aren't yet in my office, but I would love to have them here. The tones of vintage powdercoated steel make my heart beat faster at a flea market, and now that I see them in yarn form, I am just as enamored.

Why is there no knitted swatch here like there is on Franklin's post? Well, that's because Lorna's Laces is pretty much a 100% woolly house of yarn. All the protoypes I got to see were on wool, and I even borrowed a group of Purple Purl knitters including a visiting author-friend to help test knit swatches so I could choose the final color. Adrienne took home two different colorways, one of which turned out to be the final Amy's Vintage Office.

Beth will be dyeing up some of my colorway on Amy-friendly yarn and I promise to share a big swatch with you the moment it arrives. Will she be selling this Amy-friendly yarn? She might, if enough of you ask for it. Go visit Beth's blog and tell her what you think of the colorway!

[Lorna's Laces retailers will be able to order the colorway for you. Just sayin.]

A cupcake for Brenda!

Some time early this afternoon [eastern time in North America], Brenda Dayne's Cast On podcast celebrated a milestone. Some clever person became the 1,000,000th person to download her podcast! A million people! [Brenda, I can't imagine what your bandwidth charges are. Ack!]

Go over and give her a smooch of congratulations. We knew her when, eh? Our little Brenda. I'm so proud!

It's very freaky, Bowie.

It really happened. Baseballic proof above. Below, video proof. The first clip is hysterical -- they drove me out on the field in a van! If you listen, you can hear the announcer saying something about "Amy Singer, editor of Knitty..." and then a whole bunch of stuff I can't make out.

Surreal? You can't even imagine. If there weren't pictures, I'd swear it didn't happen.

[For the full photo thread, click the baseball pic above. I captioned them, even.]





Yes, I threw it respectably well enough. The ball made it all the way to the mascot's catcher's mitt, no troubles. But my favorite thing was the huge cheers I got from the knitters in the 200 section. The roar was clearly coming from my people and there were a LOT of them. 900+ tickets sold. You guys make me proud to be a Toronto girl.

Oh, I hear there was knitting afterwards. I tried to knit two rows, frogged both, and spent the rest of the game chatting with friends and, at the end, finally watching the field. We won, and it was a great win -- last hit of the last inning kind of thing. Love baseball when it's good.

brunettes, not fighter jets!

In honor of this, and with much trepidation and also the strapping on of some very large balls, I present my online ukulele debut.

Groupies may apply to peoplewithverylowstandards@knitty.com



This song is not in my key vocally [I'm sort of high-alto], but I could play all the chords, so I left it as it was. And the reason I decided to put the video up despite all common sense is that I'm quite proud of my uke playing after just over a week of practise. The singing-along is a necessary evil.

All other knitter/ukulele players, raise your hands! Bring your ukes to stitch nights! Amuse your fellow knitters, and have everyone sing along! I'll be bringing mine to Rhinebeck and encourage all of you who are coming to do the same!

Seriously, though. I just sang for you on teh interwebs. If you're in Toronto tomorrow night, you'd better come out and represent for the knitters when I throw out the first pitch. No coming in late. I will likely never be on the pitcher's mound in a huge stadium again in my lifetime. You don't want to miss that, do you?

you're so beautiful, you could be a waitress

[scout on the left, me on the right, wearing our karmically linked zulugrass.]
image shamelessly stolen from scout's flickr

when life works out like it did earlier this week, it's hard not to believe in the power of external forces. i choose to believe it's karma. and good timing.

jillian and carla are my roomies for Rhinebeck this October [Rhinebeck! wooooo!]. they're driving direct from Michigan, which is a long enough trip on its own. they ain't sweeping past Toronto to pick me up this time, and i don't blame them a bit.

i have been agonizing over every possible route and method of transport to Rhinebeck for months. don't want 12 hours on the train. don't want to drive 7+ hours alone. no affordable flights from here to the closest airport to Rhinebeck.

then Scout -- who i stayed with last June when i visited Albuquerque, and have missed ever since -- blogs [in a rare blog post] that she's going too. i tell her she'd better come because i'll be there.

next thing you know, we realize we're both going to be in the same 20-mile radius at about the same time both before and after Rhinebeck, and the result? Scout's picking me up at Newark airport [cheapish flight, yay!], we're driving to Rhinebeck together. and back again on Sunday after the show.

scout and i on the road. in her daddy's car [!], with my GPS and her satellite radio. oh, you *so* would want to be in the back seat for that trip, but you can't, so there. we're both so excited to be able to have time to hang out together, you should have read the chat transcript as we made the plans. lots of vowels strung together with exclamation marks at the end of 'em.

you can't take me out anywhere, but someone's gonna try.

hub brought me this last night as a little present.

a pink baseball.

for what reason?

why?

i guess it's well-known enough that i am fond of pink, but that's not the main reason.

it's a baseball, after all. what is it doing in my house?

perhaps a closeup might make its purpose more apparent:


dudes. i'm gonna throw out the first pitch at the Toronto Stitch & Pitch game on August 5th.

i am simultaneously thrilled, horrified, terrified, excited and a little giddy. the baseball is in our house because i don't just throw like the stereotypical girl. i throw like a 4-year-old girl. hub says we're gonna train before it's time for me to stand on the pitcher's mound in the middle of SkyDome the stadium in front of, like, lots of people, and try [desperately] to at least get the ball as far as the catcher.

meanwhile, my friend Dawn tells me this Training ball is the same type of ball 5-year-olds use to play t-ball. and i bet they can all throw the ball better than i can.

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garden update!

so the fence was in when i last wrote about our troubled backyard.

last fall, we planted two apple trees and lots of shrubs in the border to begin filling it out.


well, the lawn is scraggly and there are tons of weeds, but there is also a brand new raised bed! we bought a raised bed kit from Lee Valley Tools, and i searched out patio stones that weren't butt-ugly for the sidewalls. these look like slate. hub built the thing with great care, ensuring there was anti-weed cloth under the box and sifting the soil to get out as much of the wild violet roots as possible.


foody things are now growing in there! we transplanted the tomato, and planted arugula, parsley and endive seeds for the buns -- everything but the parsely sprouted in 2 days! we're too late in the season for much else, but i will go seek out some overgrown seedlings at the garden centers that are still open around here.

holy crap. i did it to myself.

so i recently went on and on about how newly made stuff breaks too soon, requiring replacement, and how we're programmed to think "must have new" any time we see something shinier than what we have. [i'm sure many of you resist this, and perhaps it doesn't affect some of you. lucky buggers.] i try to resist this horrible condition and often succeed. and sometimes not.

[this post is not going to end the way you think it is. stick with me.]

all the cool kids are getting new cameras. they take really great pictures, although we know a lot of that is the person behind the camera. so this makes me think about my cameras. i've been carrying around a Canon Powershot sd550 since I bought it for our trip to Italy a few years ago. the other camera I had was bulky and annoying. this one was light! it fit in my pocket! it takes pretty great pictures! and it's 7.1 megapixels, which is more than the other camera i had. more is better, right?

seriously. i'd just bought this super-expensive camera less than a year before the Canon. it was to be the Knitty magazine camera. but it was big and only 5 megapixels [oh, dear. less is bad, right?]. once the Canon arrived, i felt that the Lumix was already obsolete, and was angry at myself for choosing it in the first place. instead, i used the Canon for everything. that was more than 2 years ago.

this thursday, Mel and i were excavating my office, transforming it from a pile of piles into functional space -- which is another post for another day. Mel unearthed the Lumix in its rather-small, quite-nice LowePro case [smaller than I remember. hmm]. i took it out and there on the lens i saw this: 12x optical zoom.

oh. right. i chose the Lumix after hours and hours of careful searching on digital camera review websites because it had a kickass optical zoom and a Leica lens. clearly I had forgotten that part.

dudes, i talked myself out of liking something i already owned that was more than good enough for my needs just because i thought there was better to be had. it's a good lesson learned.

i charged up the battery last night and took the Lumix along with me to a Tour de Fleece kickoff party. i have some serious manual-reading to do in order to take advantage of all the features of this camera -- many manual or semi-manual options, even -- but here are a few point-and-shoot, low-light, no-tripod shots from last night. i know they are nothing special, except for the subject matter, which is lovely. but i'll be able to do better shortly, and soon, without spending a penny on anything. i love that.










bokeh, here i come.

Photographic proof that we wuz there

Mason-Dixon Returns
Originally uploaded by Potter Craft News

This picture mercilessly pilfered from our publisher's blog [Potter Craft News] because though I brought my camera, I didn't take it out of the case once. This happens every TNNA. I get too busy doing to remember to chronicle.

Anyway, back to this picture: this is Jillian and I in our spiffy new Knitty shirts [how cute are we?] simultaneously drooling over the forthcoming new book from our favorite Mason-Dixon women. It's an awesome book and I cannot wait till I can get my hands on a real copy. [This was one o' them b&w proof copies and we had to put it back on the shelf when we were done.] It's full of such goodness, I am at a loss to share. You'll be able to see soon enough.


Also pilfered from Potter [thank you for sharing, Sarah! :-)], a picture of sweet Nathania and baby Ellie and her universe-altering hair. I was lucky enough to get to spend a little time bouncing Ellie on my lap on our first night at TNNA and she is one of those dream, easy-going babies. Plus she smells so good.


Pilfered from Abby's flickr stream [thank you, Abby!], a strange shot showing me just a little too interested in what's on the menu at the Hyatt. Mostly, I was interested in talking to Franklin, but am thankful that there's proof we were in the same room anyway . :-) So that was Franklin on my right and...


Jess on my left. [again, one of Abby's shots]. This is the first time the Ravelers and I have been in the same place at the same time, so there was excessive getting-to-know-each-othering and note-comparing. I really like these three people, the Jess and the Mary-Heather and the Casey. And it's a picture like the next one that shows just why it's so easy to like them:


This is one of Miriam's pictures, again pilfered without even asking first. This captures the true Tip Top experience [TNNAers take over the Tip Top bar in Columbus every time we're there]. Beer, laughter, and Casey flipping Mim the bird with a little freshly crocheted Bob puppet [courtesy of the sweet people at Malabrigo...how cool are they?]. L to R, we've got the KitchenerBitch from the coffeeshop, Casey, Mary-Heather and Jessica of Rose-Kim Knits.

That's all that everyone's uploaded so far. I sadly missed out on the dry-ice madness (see the Harlot's blog for full details and photographic proof of the madness, but I had many adventures of my own. And I'll write more about them tomorrow, including how I lost my voice the night before the whole show started and had to go through 3 days of working my favorite trade show unable to speak.

Now, though, bed. Knitty summer is coming so soon, it's ridiculous, but not tonight.

Knitty Yarn Roundtable nights -- June, July & August dates announced!

Do you know about Knitty's Yarn Roundtable evenings? If you're in the Toronto area, or will be in the next three months, you could join in!

We've added virtual yarn sampling to Knitty. In the spirit of Knitty, these events are a social, collaborative project where a group of us will gather around an assortment of yarns from just about every yarn company on the planet, and get to touch, swatch, fondle and tell the world what you think of the yarn. We want to share our favorites with our readers and let them know about surprises that knit up much differently than the average knitter would expect from just looking or squeezing a ball. As is the custom with Knitty, stuff we don't like won't appear in our pages.

Jacquie B. [goddess of all things organized and fun] and I will be there as secretaries and social butterflies for the evenings, gathering your comments and evaluating which yarns will end up in the Yarn Roundtable feature each issue.

We'll be holding the Yarn Roundtable nights at the fabulous, friendly The Purple Purl [1162 Queen St. E. Toronto]. 30 knitters are welcome at each evening, and in order to let as many people as possible have a chance to participate, you can RSVP for only 1 event in every cycle [that's 3 months]. We hold these events monthly (or almost) so there will be lots of chances for everyone to swatch the good stuff!

There's a lot of organization involved in keeping this event tidy and making sure it can run smoothly. Your assistance in following all instructions is very much appreciated!

We've set up a blog just for RSVPs. Each event has its own blog post. To RSVP, simply read the instructions for that evening and if you're eligible, leave a comment to that post. The blog is here. Go forth and be orderly, but with amusement!

We're home!

*
How does one know one was just in Alaska? One finds a polar bear in her shorts.

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Um, wow.

If you prefer recaps in pictures, click here. Otherwise, stick, around for the brief narrated version. If you can call this post brief. It's a whole week's recap, so maybe get a little snack first.

First highlight of the trip: we got to visit Tom Bihn & Darcy [!] at his factory.



Many more pictures on Flickr. We had a fantastic time seeing into the inner workings of one of our favorite companies, and spending time with Tom and Darcy was fabulous. Of course, once we got to the shop, we were unable to prevent ourselves from buying a few choice souvenirs. Hub got a Smart Alec backpack to hold his laptop, already protected by the Archetype bag we got him when the computer first arrived. They're a perfect pair. The Archetype has clips that snap into the Smart Alec to hold it in place. So cool.

Me? I finally got to see a Cafe Bag in person, and couldn't leave without the Plum/Wasabi one for my trip. It is a brilliant bag and I adore it. So did everyone who saw it on me during the cruise. :-)

In Swift news [the Swift is the knitting bag that Tom designed with the help of Knitty readers], they now offer it in pink [!] and a cool blue. Yup, I got a pink one. You're surprised?

After that visit, we met up with the first installment of Sea Socks cruisers and took the ferry over to Bainbridge Island. I got to re-hug Kit and John and Deb of Churchmouse Yarns and Teas and watch as my fellow knitters decimated the basket of Shoalwater silk lace [the same stuff I'm knitting my tube out of]. I managed to score the last skein of purple for Keri.

For those not there, yes, Churchmouse is glad to take telephone orders. [I asked.]

My souvenir of the day?

We made it to Mora just before they closed. Strawberry and Swiss Chocolate [which is actually chocolate with dulce de leche and chocolate flakes]. Oh, sigh. Heaven, once again.

The next day, a yarn crawl all over Seattle. You want to see my haul? Sorry, but there's not much to show. My travel rule is that I only buy yarn I can't get at home [unless there's a specific urgent reason to break that rule]. So I bought two skeins of Berroco Comfort DK to play with, two skeins of Muench Big Baby [which I made into a fabulous pair of faux-felted slippers on the cruise] and that was all. The yarn shops were all fabulous and I'm glad I got to see them, though!

Finally, we got on board the ship. Our cabin was fabulous [I never remember to take pictures of the cabin] with a balcony and a larger bathroom than we remember on the Princess cruise we took in 2006.

The next week is really a blur. The weather all week was mostly rainy [until the day we visited Victoria, where it rarely rains], and the seas were stormy on many of the days, too. My patch kicked in after dinner on the first day and I was never queasy again for the whole week. I <3 the patch.

First stop: Ketchikan



A little town but very charming.



See? Rain. But we had fun anyway! It was mostly misty stuff.

What's in that bag I'm carrying? Why, yarn! My one purchase on the trip: Raven Frog Fiber Arts Silk Chenille [!] hand dyed in a crazy pink/raspberry/brown/cream combo that begged to be crocheted into tiny granny squares for a scarf. [Dawn gave me a refresher lesson.] No pics just yet.


That is my boy in his new Utilikilt. We drove past the shop in Seattle and I squealed, "go get one!" [He had the day to himself when I was on the yarn crawl]. And he did! I couldn't stop grinning when I saw him in it and I'm rather proud to be married to a man who suits a kilt so well. He wore it all over the cruise. No, I'm not going to knit him kilt hose. There's no non-wool yarn suitable.


That night was Knitty Knits night on the ship. Look at all the fabulous Clapotiseseses! And there's way more in my Flickr album, too. Way fun.


This is pretty much our view for a good bit of the cruise. Grey and stormy. But then...



little iceberglets! We must be getting close to...


the Hubbard glacier!

This was, without question, the highlight of the cruise. We gathered on my balcony and Brenda Dayne's [a few doors down]...


watched the berglets float by and took a billion pictures of the ancient ice.



When the iceberg calved [a chunk broke off] everyone scrambled to take pictures. We couldn't quite work out if we should be glad to see it or mourn it, but we were all fully present, witnessing it. We were told that icebergs are growing and shrinking all the time [not just shrinking, which is what I'd feared was happening due to the warming-up of this planet of ours].

The next day, we arrived in Juneau, where hub and I had signed up for a glacier-view sea kayak excursion.



It was beautiful, as you can see. The glacier is the white bit dead ahead of the kayak. We paddled for more than an hour and got quite a bit closer to the glacier.



It was beautiful and quiet. Hub and I shared a kayak, which we had feared might not be such a wise idea [we don't share moving vehicles very well], but it worked out just fine. We behaved ourselves and I took pictures of him, me and everything around us, including the seals [which you can't see in the pictures] and the bald eagle that came to visit:



Then back to Juneau for lunch at the very touristy, but also very friendly [and tasty!], Red Dog Saloon.



Okay, I've run out of steam. I managed [despite constant hand-washing] to catch a cold which showed itself on the plane home. So I'll finish this up tomorrow. Oh, the suspense! :-)

---

*On the cruise, the very interesting naturalist told us all sorts of stuff about the glacier we were seeing. And at the end of each little blurb, he'd say, "As I wrote in my kayak journal..." and then spout some kind of weird Jack Handey-type naturalist wisdom about being in the wild, in all seriousness. We were practically peeing our pants with the laughing by the third or fourth time he did this. So I've brought him home with me. I've also intentionally not mentioned his name here because I don't want to hurt his feelings, should he happen to google himself. He was a most cool dude, but the kayak journal stuff was just too too much.

It's time to party!

Okay. So the Knitter's Frolic is in two days. Saturday, if you knit and you're in Toronto, you're likely going to be there. It ends at 4pm. What will you do with yourself afterwards?

Why, you're going to offload your new goodies, have a little dinner and then come down to Lettuce Knit to celebrate with us! [70 Nassau Street in Kensington Market]

Yes, the More Big Girl Knits book launch party is this Saturday at 7pm.

We will have cupcakes from Life Is Sweet [come early. they'll go fast.]
We will have a ton of door prizes.
We will have JILLIAN in person for the first time in Toronto in ages.
We will have a live Irish all-woman band playing us into the evening [we <3 the Polka Dots!]
We will have all the garments from the book for you to try on and feel great in!

And much more. Denny has promised, if we get her drunk enough, to do a nice jig.

Shannon Okey will be there. Oh, yeah -- I'll be there, too.

Please come!

And since we've spent nearly every penny of our advance actually producing the book and what was left on the cupcakes, we hope you will BYOB. Thank you.

Bring your knitting! Wear a sweater [it will get cool when the sun goes down and you won't want to go home that early]! Bring a folding chair if you feel like it!

See you Saturday!

p.s. Yup, I was on BT again this morning. When I can get my laptop to talk to the Tivo, I'll get the clip up. Wait till you see the kickass models I found for the sweaters this time!

The biggest contest Knitty has ever had

Sometime on April 13th, Knitty reached an insanely great milestone: 50 million individual site visits. FIFTY MILLION.

As you can imagine, there was much hooting and hollering of happiness. This is a big deal for us, and it's all because of our readers. So we sat down and thought about how we could thank you guys for reading, linking to, talking about and knitting from Knitty magazine. And one thing came to mind: really great shwag.

I contacted some of the Knitty favorites and was answered each time with a resounding, "Yes! We want to celebrate with you!" Knitters, we have ourselves a contest.

How do you enter? It's so easy, it's almost embarrassing. Just sign up for the Knitty mailing list which we:
a) never sell or give to anyone, EVER, and never will
b) only send messages to a few times a year about Knitty-related news and events, like when a new issue or surprise goes live!

Okay. So why would you want to enter this contest? Please sit down. You may need a cold compress on your forehead in order to make it through the list of prizes.



One lucky winner will be chosen at random [using the random number generator] from the members of the Knitty mailing list and will receive:

From Lexie of Lexie Barnes, a $250 gift certificate to her shop!





From Beth of Lorna's Laces,
a sweater's worth of the Lorna's Laces yarn of your choice, in your choice of color!




From Potter Craft, you'll get these six knitting books:
Big Girl Knits * More Big Girl Knits * A Fine Fleece
Twinkle's Weekend Knits * Tweed * Shear Spirit






From Knitting Out Loud, their entire library of knit-related audio books:
Stitch & Bitch * America Knits * A History of Hand Knitting
Knitting Memories * No Idle Hands * The Art of Fair Isle Knitting





From Jennifer of Stitch Diva, her entire library of more than 40 Stitch Diva Patterns in knit, crochet and hairpin lace!





From Cat Bordhi, her entire collection, autographed, including all 4 of her revolutionary moebius and sock knitting books and her novel, Treasure Forest.





We can't stand it. This is about as big as we've ever done anything, and we're super excited! Tell your knitting friends -- it's as easy as joining the Knitty mailing list. And that's pretty danged easy. Are you already on the list? Then you're already eligible to win!

Contest winner will be chosen by a random number generator on May 1, 2008 at 9 am eastern time [that's Toronto/New York time for those that will cut it close]. The random number will correspond to the person's numeric place in the Knitty Yahoo Group [home of the mailing list], which is assigned by date registered. The winner will be announced later that day on this blog, through the Knitty group itself and probably by random strangers on the street.

um, wow.

This is Tracey. This picture pretty much sums up yesterday's launch party at Threadbear. People walked in as normal folks, tried on sweaters, and turned into coquettish vixens of Big Girl bounty and beauty. Click on Tracey's name above to read her account of the afternoon. She's not on our publisher's payroll, promise.

It really was a beautiful thing to see everyone stripping in the middle of a yarn store [down to t-shirts, people -- there was no nudity :-) ] and trying on all the sweaters from the book. Some were quiet. Some were squee-machines. All were smiling at one point during the day [for some, it was ALL DAY]. Here, look:



And here is Jillian, getting a huge, long hug from a knitter [I'm sorry I don't remember your name!] who tried on Cable Love, walked right over to J and thanked her for making her feel beautiful. We all welled up. It was a seriously beautiful moment, and she DID look super fabulous, too. So many smiles. So many women surprised at how they could look in a sweater that was designed to fit them and flatter their figure.

We laughed, we gave advice, we picked colors, and then picked new ones because the selection was so big it was hard to choose! We ate cupcakes without apology. We had an absolutely fabulous day.

Thank you to Rob and Matt, our beloved Threadbear boys. They give the best hugs, and the cupcakes were MORE than promised. We wanted to eat one of each flavor, but managed to top out at 2 or 3. We gave out new Big Girl and Knitty buttons and we mostly laughed until our sides were sore. More pictures can be found on my Flickr, but I leave you with this:



We're going to try to do it all again in two weeks at Lettuce Knit. Will you be there?

Crazy go nuts day!

I can think of no better way to celebrate Harlot day in Toronto than by buying her book AND ours, which was just released this very day. Even.

Don't forget -- we're having launch parties in TWO CITIES for More Big Girl Knits, and everyone is invited.

More Big Girl Knits launch party, v 1.0
location: Threadbear Fiber Arts, East Lansing, MI
date: April 13th, 1pm
the boys know how to throw a big party and we can't wait!

More Big Girl Knits launch party v 1.1
location: Lettuce Knit, Toronto, ON
date: April 26th, 7pm [conveniently timed to let you finish up at the Knitter's Frolic and then come and join us in Kensington Market!]

Jillian and I will be at both parties, as well as
- samples from the book [possibly their only appearance en masse as we have to return them to the designers shortly]
- cupcakes
- the new Big Girls book in the flesh [both shops will have them for sale]
- DOOR PRIZES, people

alive! and More Big Girl Knits launch party nooz!

So it's like this. I came home from Ann Arbor, popped out a Knitty :-) [why does that sound dirty?] and then got in the car with hub and drove to Vermont.

The Mindful Knitting retreat was amazing, eye-opening and huge fun. Full deets are being saved for a future article in the Knitty.

Of course, while relaxing, I got a[nother?] cold. So maybe the post-Florida thing was allergies, because this certainly ain't. I have never gone through so much kleenex in 4 days in my whole life.

---

Super-quick party announcement, aka SAVE THE DATE!

More Big Girl Knits launch party, v 1.0
location: Threadbear Fiber Arts, East Lansing, MI
date: April 13th, 1pm
the boys know how to throw a big party and we can't wait!

More Big Girl Knits launch party v 1.1
location: Lettuce Knit, Toronto, ON
date: April 26th, 7pm [conveniently timed to let you finish up at the Knitter's Frolic and then come and join us in Kensington Market!]

Jillian and I will be at both parties, as well as
- samples from the book [possibly their only appearance en masse as we have to return them to the designers shortly]
- cupcakes
- the new Big Girls book in the flesh [both shops will have them for sale]

and other surprises!

Bring your friends, turn it into a road trip and let's make these parties huge and memorable!

Remindah!

I'm going to do the speaking thing at the Ann Arbor District Library this weekend! I'll be giving my No Sheep for You talk, complete with laptop and clicky thing and a microphone, even. I'll bring swatches from the book and we'll talk non-wool fibers and Knitty stuff until the cows come home, or they throw us out. Whichever comes first. There will also be a sneak preview of the new Big Girls book -- More Big Girl Knits...including your chance to rub shoulders with my beloved co-author, Jillian Moreno. Like all library stuff, attendance is free! Woot!

You may have heard about this legendary library from another knitting Torontonian. Well, now it's my turn. Except I won't need to fly in, thankfully...I'll be taking the train. :-)

No Sheep/Knitty® Knit-in

Date: Sunday, March 9

Time: 2-3:30pm [knit-in following the program; library closes at 6pm] -- don't forget you'll be setting your clock forward before you go to bed on Saturday night! I don't want to miss you!

Location: Multipurpose Room at the Downtown Library, 343 South Fifth Avenue, (at the corner of Williams and Fourth).

Notes: Parking is free on Sunday at the lot next door. The Library will open at noon. Seats at the program are first come first serve. In the event of a capacity crowd, overflow will be simulcasted from the 4th floor Boardroom.

Program information:
Learn the ins and outs of fibers that aren't wool and never had four legs. We'll learn about cotton, linen, hemp, bamboo, lyocell, rayon, soy, the new synthetics and more, plus the most delicious non-wool of all: silk. Learn about the GeeKY thing [hint: it involves knitting]. It's the tool that will help you to how to substitute non-wool fibers when the pattern calls for wool and get a great result. Here's a secret -- it's WAY more than matching the gauge.

Bring your non-wool questions and your knitting! I will be glad to sign copies of No Sheep for You [someone will have them for sale at the event if you don't have one and would like one], and if we've got time left, we'll have a knit-in!

---

Okay, so that's the story. Will you come? I would love to fill up the room with Knitty-loving knitters -- non-woollies, woollies, girls and guys of every size and every other kind of knitter. I'm up for a massive knit-in if you guys are...so please come and bring your knitting peeps!

Will I see you there?

Knitty Yarn Roundtable nights -- 3 new dates available for RSVP!

You haven't seen the feature yet in Knitty, but we've been collecting content for a while now, and it will go live in the next issue. What is it?

Here:
Starting with the spring '08 issue, we're adding virtual yarn sampling to Knitty. In the spirit of Knitty, this will be a social, collaborative project where a group of us will gather around an assortment of yarns from just about every yarn company on the planet, and get to touch, swatch, fondle and tell the world what you think of the yarn. We want to share our favorites with our readers and let them know about surprises that knit up much differently than the average knitter would expect from just looking or squeezing a ball. As is the custom with Knitty, stuff we don't like won't appear in our pages.

Jacquie B. [goddess of all things organized and fun] and I will be there as secretaries and social butterflies for the evenings, gathering your comments and evaluating which yarns will end up in the Yarn Roundtable feature each issue.

We'll be holding the Yarn Roundtable nights at the fabulous, friendly The Purple Purl [1162 Queen St. E. Toronto]. 30 knitters are welcome at each evening, and in order to let as many people as possible have a chance to participate, you can RSVP for only one event in a row. So if you were at January's event, you can RSVP to the 2nd or 3rd of the three I announce today, but not the first. We're planning to hold these monthly (or almost) so there will be lots of chances for everyone to swatch the good stuff!

There's a lot of organization involved in keeping this event tidy and making sure it can run smoothly. Your assistance in following all instructions is very much appreciated!

We've set up a blog just for RSVPs [so that non-Facebook users need not be excluded]. Each event has its own blog post. To RSVP, simply read the instructions for that evening and if you're eligible, leave a comment to that post.

The blog is here. Go forth and be orderly, but with amusement!

don't you call me crazy.

So last night I began the new project. Here are the supplies:



Want a closer look?


Yes, that's correct. Size 0 needles.

Here's what the fabric looks like:


Do you see those perfect, tiny stitches? Well, trust me, they're there.

This is a simple tube, knit as small as the 16" circs would allow, which meant 190 sts. On each side, a faux seam [p1, k1, p1] so that it will lay flat like the inspiration scarf. Both ends will be seamed shut so it will not curl at the bottom, either.

Now all that remains is a year or so of knitting. I can do that. It seems crazy, but it also seems crazy not to even try. It's easy knitting -- I just have to be careful not to drop a stitch, especially at this tender beginning part.

---

p.s. Dear Skacel,
Whyfor you no make Addi Lace Turbos in size 0? Surely lace yarn requires small needles, and there's no more serious need for a tiny needle with a little grip and perfect scoopy points than this project.

I'll be knitting this for a while, so feel free to get on that development wagon and let me know when they're ready. The regular Turbos will have to do for now, but please...save my sanity. Make size 0s, okay?

Love,
Amy



---

Meanwhile, last night's Knitty Yarn Roundtable went very, very well. I can say that because the person responsible for the wellness is not me, it's ms Jacquie, hero of my world. She made everything happen including set up and wound balls of yarn [special props to Keri and Sherri on that count] and take down. Thank you, Jacquie! The Purple Purl hostesses were so sweet to us, and it was just an all-around fuzzy kumbaya kind of evening.

We've got three more scheduled: February, April and May. Dates forthcoming soon.

2007 recap in pictures and short phrases...

...because why not, really?

I'm a little stunned at all that's gone on this year, now that I'm looking back. It certainly explains the current state of my house.


No Sheep for You was published [and I got my preview copy + chocolate early in the year.]


I got to hang, briefly, with the Purlesence girls while at the big knitting trade show, TNNA.


I bought my first Habu kit, which is still in this exact state [though Henry has grown] because my brain can't process the pattern.


Cupcakes came to the beach. I have visited Life is Sweet many times since then.


I finished a sweater and started a new one.



Jillian and I had the final photoshoot for More Big Girl Knits...at the cupcake shop, of course!


The year of speaking engagements/travel began at the DKC!


I got to do Breakfast Television again with the sexiest models ever!


I finally got to visit The Fold and my head exploded.


I re-visited the KW Knitters' Guild and managed not to faint in front of Sally Melville and Debbie New this time. Progress!


Loopy Yarn love in Chicago!


Jillian and I made a pilgrimage to the homeland of her heart...Hill Country Weavers in Austin, TX. I fell in love with the place, despite the shvitz factor.


I knit with steel.


I crocheted. And liked it. Haven't done it since, though.


I discovered Zulugrass and met the kickass Scout on her home turf [Albuquerque] where she dyed me some matching yarn.


I bent sterling silver.


Hub put the dead cedar hedge out of its misery.


Massimo the Vespa joined our family, a gift from Grandma.

The next three sort of blur together in a delicious happy memory:

Bainbridge Island, Washington

Portland, Oregon

The Purlescence girls of Sunnyvale, CA, show me San Francisco and, most importantly...


No picture here. My gallbladder and I broke up, permanently.


While I was healing, Hub had a fence put in our backyard to replace the hedge.


I healed quickly enough to visit Loop in Philadelphia!


I went to SOAR and so did Denny! I can now spin yarn that I'm proud to show off!


Hub and I went to Oslo, Norway, and finally met Theresa!


Hub and I went to London, England!

And then it got nice and quiet. It's been, as you can see, an incredible year. Actually, rather more mind-blowing in retrospect. I have Flickr albums full of memories, many more blogs to follow of new friends met all over the world, and now, one last thing.

One of my favorite things about Norway was...the bedding. Really. Everyone gets their own duvet, even in a shared bed. And in the morning, you get up and fold it in half [the long way] and it looks so very Scandinavian and insanely tidy with zero effort. I loved it. No trying to fluff a huge king-sized duvet. No fighting for covers. Then Theresa made new duvet covers and that was it. I was lost:


I ordered us a pair of basic twin duvets [no, not the Icelandic Eiderdown at $2900/ea -- try the Anniversary]. We didn't get each other presents for whatever holiday it is we're celebrating this time of year, so dang it, we could have them. I have enough Amy Butler fabric and vintage linen put aside to make two perfect covers. And sewing two twin covers well seems much more achievable than sewing one huge king-sized cover, though I could probably have done it...badly.

Guess what I'll be doing this week?

Happy new year, everyone!

whew

ripped.
reknit.
fixed. all better now.

i'm going to have to talk Tina into carrying this colorway [again? did she ever or was it ust an experiment?]. it's amazing.

---

off to the MIL's house to eat the traditional xmas party feast. they're Guyanese-Canadian, so it's a bit of a mishmosh of black-eyed peas [yum], meat-based stuffing, [i don't touch the stuff. the idea of it scares me], black pudding [see previous, times a thousand], probably something macaroni-ish with cheese [yum] and the staple of the meal: KFC. i eat KFC about once a year now, and this is the time. gimme somadat crispy stuff with extra transfat, baby!

meanwhile, i got my jewish holiday fix when i was home with my fam for dad's party/chanukah. i even had a side order of latkes with my breakfast when we went to Max's deli in Highland Park.

so all is right with the world.

----

it's quiet here in bloggy land, but i'm not going anywhere and am thrilled. some of the local knitfolk are having parties to take advantage of their weekday freedom, and the Purple Purl is having a pajama party/knit in on New Year's day that you'd have to chain me to my bed to miss.

oh, and it's pouring rain and 8c outside. and i just don't care. i'm off to eat the Colonel.

The Purple Purl is open!

IMG_3448.JPG
Originally uploaded by amysinger

I totally gapped that we were getting another new yarn shop in town. Since it's in my old hood and not far from the beach, I headed out there today and met new mama Jen and darling baby Fenner for a peek about.

They've got lovely stuff, a huge space and will be serving coffee and snacks soon.

I've taken a few photos. Wanna see? Yeah, I might have bought one skein of the Indigo Moon purple silk. Can you blame me?

The 2008 Honorable Mention gallery is up!

And you can see some of the fabulous photos here on Flickr. Now you see how hard it was to pick winners for this year's calendar contest!

Thanks again to everyone who entered!

Who won the calendar contest?

It was harder than ever to pick this year's winners. We had so many great entries!

Our grand prize winner this year is Amelia Hajda. Her simple, perfect picture exactly encapsulates winter in my mind [and might make you reach for a pair of mittens!]. Her winning entry is on the cover and on the page for December. Amelia wins a ridiculously huge box of goodies from the Knitty review cabinet, including yarn, knitting books and other surprises. I may need a forklift to get it to the post office!

Here are the rest of the winners:
January: Alicia Ramirez
February: Sarah Wilkin
March: Jo Kerrigan
April: Flora Wermuth
May: Jenny Spencer
June: Suzie Putnam
July: Heidi Kastner
August: Angela Daff and her bunnies!
September: Lindsey LaPlant
October: Angela Moore
November: Jennifer Schmitz

Each of these runner-up winners will receive a copy of the calendar, fresh from the shop! Take a peek at all the calendar images there!

The honorable mention gallery will be posted in a week or so, and there are some wonderful images there, too. Knitty readers clearly have talent beyond their needles.

---

The full fall surprise just went live as well. Big day around here!

---

Meanwhile, I'm off [stop laughing] to Ann Arbor today to see Jillian, her hub and her kiddos [my honorary niece and nephew], and to teach some classes at the hallowed halls of Threadbear. The Tuscany class is pretty much full, but there may be a spot or two if you'd like to learn about the No Sheep stuff with me this Sunday. Call Rob or Matt at the shop and they'll let you know if you can sneak in.

---

Last night, Denny surprised me when I thought I was surprising her with my sweater. I want to write fully about this surprise, so I have to hold off for a bit. But I promise pictures when I do post. [It was a REALLY HAPPY surprise.]

Maybe I can ask Jillian to snap a pic or two of me in the finished Artfibers sweater, too. This could be dangerous. :-)

---

Okay, I've gotta pack! What am I doing blogging at a time like this?

koselig

Okay, so Oslo.

This whole trip was made possible by Maud of Maud's Garn and the kind folks at the Tveita Strikkefestival [knitting festival], and completely and totally facilitated and enabled by Theresa. Now, Theresa and I have been online friends since before there was a Knitty, but we never had a chance to be in the same country before now. So not only was I excited to see Norway and spread the Tuscany love, but I was totally psyched to meet Theresa.



First thing we noticed about Oslo is that there were leaves on the sidewalk. In fall, leaves to walk and skoosh your feet through, and nobody had taken that pleasure away from us. We liked this very much.

We spent much of the trip wandering and walking, taking the Trikk [streetcar] whenever possible. The subway, unlike in other cities, didn't seem so useful for downtown navigation; instead, you take the Trikk or the buses.


SHOCK: in Oslo, you simply enter the bus, subway platform or trikk without having to show your transit pass, unless you have a single-fare ticket. We each had a week's transit pass, so we just got on and off whenever we wanted. There were signs warning of surprise spot-checks to make sure everyone had a valid fare, but we never saw one happen and we would have liked to. We did see a driver stop his Trikk in the middle of a street to tell a passenger in the back that his headphones were making too much noise [you know that leaking-out of sound that headphones do?] and he had to turn it down. From these two things, we clearly understood that you don't mess about with the rules in Oslo. It's understood that you are to behave, and so people do.

Unlike other trips where we were able to figure out the local deal and go with the flow, in Oslo, it took us about five days to get our environmental bearings. Not which way is south, but what's normal, what to expect, what to do to fit in. The people of Oslo, except for the cranky people behind the counter at the mini-market, were funny, kind, nice and really helpful to tourists, when you engaged in conversation with them. But on the street, there's little-to-no eye contact and people are quiet when they're out in public. If the people are loud, they're tourists.

That is, we learned, until the weekend comes. Friday night, all bets are off and people let loose. Saturday morning, I got on the T-bane [subway] to go to Tveita to teach my last class and walked past a group of gentlemen who clearly hadn't been to bed that night and smelled like it. Saturday night, there was bonified party-screaming outside our window. And then Sunday, it was back to quiet, serene tidyness. None of this is criticism, just observation. We've travelled to a few countries [by no means a lot -- so far, France and Italy, plus a little of the Caribbean] and this was the first time we'd ever felt so foreign in a foreign place.

So yeah, a little culture shock. Theresa had a copy of this book, Brown Cheese, Please. It's about Norway and Norwegians, written by an Australian who now lives there, and it explains what we experienced really well. We bought our own copy. :-)

FREAKOUT: the food. We just didn't get it. The coffee and pastries were beautiful, but chopped celery in spaghetti sauce? Mayonnaise-y shrimp salad on your hot dog? Um, no thank you.

The knitting classes were a blast, though it was highly intimidating teaching some of the women who I'm sure know more about knitting than I ever will. It's in the blood in Norway. But we all enjoyed ourselves, and Tuscanies were building on needles all around me. I had the privilege of meeting Annemor Sundbø, an amazing woman who bought a mill and ended up discovering centuries of Norwegian knitting traditions in the rag piles that came with it. You must read her books.

AMUSEMENT: I was the only non-continental knitter in the whole country, it seemed. Every single knitter I met knit continental -- not combination, nothing else. So people were fascinated watching me do my efficient throw [I call it the flick] English/American style knitting.

I bought little yarn in Norway, understandably. It's almost all wool, and the stuff that isn't is stuff I can get at home. [My rule when travelling is to buy what I can't get at home.] This was Theresa and I browsing at Norges Husflidslag [which I thought was called Husfliden. I'm so embarrassed. :-)] I can't convey how cool this place was. Supplies for knitting, weaving, every other needlecraft, traditional Norwegian sweaters, regional costumes, housewares. Just a really, really cool place that I could have gone mental in for twice as long as we spent there. Thankfully, we left before too much damage was done, but I did get two small cones of linen to do something with later. And a really huge stitch holder that could likely hold an entire sweater front's worth of stitches. I also got to buy a few woolly presents for a friends and live vicariously through them.

Eden, I think I found the same earrings you bought -- and of course I bought them, too! From Juhl's Silver Gallery, which had tons of stuff I could have happily brought home with me.

And then there's Theresa. I said I was sure I'd be sad to leave without her, and I was right. She was a hoot, a fabulous hostess [making sure we saw the coolest things in Oslo, getting our transit passes for us, and countless other things], and a great friend. Happily, we got to stay with her and her husband the last two nights. We watched Kopps and almost peed our pants laughing. Theresa made sure we tasted traditional Norwegian foods, and we really liked the mooseburgers! I could live without the brown cheese and the hvalbiff, though.

On our own, we got to Holmenkollen, the site of the 1952 Winter Olympic games, via T-bane, all by ourselves [so proud]. Hub got in the ski jump simulator and loved it. I watched from outside. Hey, someone had to take the pictures!

But I'd have to say the sightseeing highlight was the day Theresa took us to Vigeland Park, which I've heavily documented in my Flickr album. It was a deeply grey day, without rain, and very cool. We walked through the park, captivated by the sculptures, each one designed by Gustav Vigeland. 212 sculptures in bronze and granite, plus the gorgeous iron gates. We walked, took pictures, listened to the accordionist playing French love songs [seriously] and soaked it all in.

So there you go. A week in Oslo, summed up as best I can. It was astounding, confounding, stunning, warm, and most definitely koselig [which is sort of pronounced "koosh-e-le"]. You know that feeling when it's cold outside, and you come in, cheeks red, light a fire in the fireplace or fill your living room with candlelight, snuggle into the couch and feel supremely cozy? That's koselig, and more than anything, I love Norway because they have a word for it.

Getting ready to move on...

Vigeland Park
Originally uploaded by amysinger

We've been really busy, taking in as much of Oslo as we could between teaching classes and recovering from ongoing jet lag. Lots of new photographic highlights on Flickr.

You'll see Theresa in many of the pics. She's amazing. I will be very sad to leave her behind when I get on the plane to London tomorrow.

Meanwhile, you can listen to both of us in the Norwegian Public Radio interview we did earlier in the week. The whole program can be found here, for those who speak Norwegian. T's working on a translation and I'll link to it when it's done.

the bag...it's finally here!

Do you remember this?

We sure do. We've been talking to Tom Bihn for several years now, giving them our ideas and feedback on their ideas for a new knitting bag design. Well, it's ready and you can finally get one for yourself!



It's called The Swift, and it was named by a clever group of Knitty readers around a big table at a coffeeshop in Toronto. One of them wrote about it on her blog, and she's clearly smitten. Me? I got to test a prototype or two and I'm really impressed with the final bag. Tom Bihn's famous for producing well-made, well-thought-out bags, and now we finally get to benefit from the best of his design expertise blended with what Knitty readers said they really wanted in a bag.

Because you might wonder, we're not involved with Tom Bihn except as cheerleaders and fans of the stuff they make. We don't get a cut of the bags or anything else beyond our prototype samples. We feel lucky to have been asked for our opinions and ideas on the topic, and we're glad to see the final result of our collaboration.

let's try this again!

I'm doing Shannon's Knitgrrl podcast today [no, really this time]. Did you know it was a live call-in show? Seriously. So if you've got any questions for me, please call in! The show page is here, and the number to call to speak to Shannon and I is (718) 664-9504. Show starts at 6pm eastern time today [Friday] and there's nothing worse than a call-in show with no callers. Please, don't leave me hanging. Yes, mom, you can call in if you want. :-)

call me! and a little pinkness

Hope you are liking fall Knitty. I was quite glad to get it up and mostly bug free, too. The cold is now a spasmy cough, so the doc prescribed Flovent. Erp.

And to celebrate, I'm doing Shannon's Knitgrrl podcast today. Did you know it was a live call-in show? Seriously. So if you've got any questions for me, please call in! The show page is here, and the number to call to speak to Shannon and I is (718) 664-9504. Show starts at 2pm eastern time today [Friday] and there's nothing worse than a call-in show with no callers. Please, don't leave me hanging. Yes, mom, you can call in if you want. :-)

oops. technical difficulties. so we've rescheduled for 6pm next week, so the west coasters have a chance of getting in. Friday, 6pm. Sorry if you were waiting for us!

---

Oh my. I ordered a seat cover for the Vespa at the end of my west-coast trip. I was giddy on Sunnyvale friends and bubble tea and I ordered this crazy pink snow leopard [i don't even have to say faux fur, do i?] custom seat cover from Crystal, who makes each one herself. I just couldn't handle the BEIGENESS of the seat, even if it was sorta faux suede.

So it's here, and it's the definition of PINK. You will see me coming and going with this under my tush. In fact, it seems this fabric was so popular that it sold out. And no, I'd never order camo. To me, camo = war, even if it's in another color. There was nothing else that grabbed me like the pink snow leopard, so that's what I got. Snork.

Honestly, though, it's very well made, with custom cutouts for the bag hook at the front and the keyhole in the side of the seat, and it's washable. And it makes me giggle when i look at the scoot. But Massimo...you think he is man enough to handle this much pink?

And for anyone who wants one, Crystal will do custom fabric for you. One day, I'll have her do a barkcloth cover for me.

my Philly adventure

I'm back from Philadelphia. What, you didn't know I was gone? It was that fast. I think I was away from home a total of 27 hours, but what a crazy 27 hours it was!

First, massive props to Craig, proprietor of Loop in Philadelphia. He's charming and sweet [and now no longer a Jamba Juice virgin], has a great shop and made the whole weekend possible.

The Knittyboard crew wanted me to come to their big Phillyfest, and thanks to Craig's generosity and organization, I was provided with plane fare and the nicest hotel room I believe I've ever slept in. Look at the puffiness of the bed!



That's the Sofitel Philadelphia, btw, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone lucky enough to stay there.

In order to earn my keep, I taught a No Sheep class on Sunday morning to a lovely group of PA/NJ/NY knitters eager to learn about my favorite fibers. And met my first silk-allergic knitter! I confess I looked at her with the same overly sympathetic eyes that people look at me when it comes to my wool allergy. Sorry if I offended...I just can't imagine life without all animal fibers INCLUDING silk. Wow.

And Saturday, we had a big Knittyboard meetup, where I finally got to hug some of the girls who keep the Knitty Coffeeshop hopping and vibrant every day. I have no pictures of them, because they were too busy dressing me in a horror of novelty yarn and taking my picture. No, I'm not linking to any of them. It's just too much to bear. The things I do for you guys!

We had a great time knitting and laughing and embarrassing ourselves with generous doses of TMI and then went out for cheesesteaks. I had a half and fared very well.

Special thanks to Jamie and Jas who made sure I got back to my hotel safely. Pictures on Flickr.

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And then there's the airport story.

Because I'm not supposed to lift heavy stuff [hint: suitcase] for a while longer, I'd made arrangements for a wheelchair ride through the airport. This worked very well until I got to the Philly airport. A half an hour later, the chair still hadn't arrived, and it was time to board my flight! I freaked! I couldn't get through the security line in time, and the guy behind the counter was completely useless. He wouldn't even try to get me on my flight and was already trying to book me on the next one, 4 hours later.

Are you kidding me?

A supervisor finally came out, and when I explained my situation to her, she escorted me to the "short" line...which didn't move either. I was screwed.

All of a sudden, a flash of silver passes me on the right...a wheelchair with a passenger in it! So I did what I had to: I walked right behind the wheelchair like I belonged there [because I did!], right up to the front of the line, slipped my bags on the conveyor [being careful not to rip out anything the surgeons had put in place] and made it to the gate just in time. I was surprised that no one freaked on me for doing this, but honestly, if I'd had the chair I was supposed to have, I'd have been through in plenty of time.

Oy.

Anyway, it was a great weekend and meeting everyone makes it all worthwhile. I hug you all and will now get back to work.

[Sunnyvale women: I love you. More shortly.]

what the heck ARE those things in the new banner?

Leave it to Jenna to ask the pithy questions in the comments

I changed my blog banner and decided to add Cast On Knitting Scouts badges that I've earned so far.

I never was a brownie or a girl guide or a campfire girl. Not sure why -- we just didn't do it in the Singer household. But as a gear ho™, I do love me some stinkin badges and I've definitely earned these:

Left to right, the badges are:
The “Proselytize Knitting” Badge - A requirement for all Knitting Scouts, the recipient must do his or her bit to present knitting in a positive light, whilst at the same time avoiding all references to “hipness”, grandmothers, and yoga. I feel quite sure I do my part in this area, and gladly.

The “MacGyver” Badge (Level Two) - The recipient must demonstrate clever use of a knitting tool in a non-knitting-related scenario. For instance, recipient has used a strand of Regia Bamboo to slice cheese, or repaired a small appliance with a metal knitting needle. Example: My Vespa helmet's visor has been prevented from rattling when I ride by the judicious application of hemp yarn around the snaps.

The “I’ve Been Published in a Knitting Magazine” badge - The recipient has been published in a print or online knitting magazine. The Montego Bay Scarf published at Interweave gets me this one, though one could argue that my column might qualify as well.

The “I’ve Written a Knitting Book” Badge - The recipient has written and published a book in which knitting patterns and beautifully photographed knitting feature prominently; Or, the recipient has written and published a book in which he/she writes eloquently about the knitting experience. No extra credit, but proper snaps if the recipient actually makes any money at it. By April 2008, it'll be 4. I'm still stunned by this fact.

Further down on the badge page, you'll notice a badge that gives the finger to three publications. You earn this badge if you've had a submission rejected by them. I'm simultaneously horrified and sympathetic to find Knitty as one of the three.

I know how much work goes into a Knitty submission. I really do. Writing rejection notes used to make me physically sick to my stomach with the guilt of having to say no. But I've had to train myself to stop that, because the guilt serves no purpose. I deeply respect the amount of time, effort and hope that is expended with every submission, and figure I can take a little one-fingered salute in exchange. As long as you guys know no malice is intended by my rejection, I'll assume no malice is intended in your salute. :-)

There, Jenna. Better?

the cost of running classes from the LYS perspective

A few points were brought up in the comments for the last post, and Kit, who owns Churchmouse Yarns & Teas [I love the name too!] wanted to share her perspective. I think it's really good for us regular folk [those of us who don't own a LYS] to understand how things work, so I'm posting this here on her behalf. Take it away, Kit!

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Kit Hutchin here, owner of Churchmouse Yarns & Teas on Bainbridge Island. There are just two spots left in each of the Tuscany Shawl classes, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and a few seats in the No Sheep For You talk (a bigger group) on Tuesday evening.

While I know these workshops seem expensive, please understand that they're not big money makers for a yarn shop, especially when we bring a celebrity teacher from a long way away. You might be surprised at all the expenses involved in hosting, staffing and promoting an event such as this. I feel strongly about paying teachers fairly for their professional expertise and I also see this as an opportunity to support an author through book sales.

When you sign up for a class, we offer a 10% discount for supplies and we can also offer suggestions for appropriate yarns that are less expensive than hand-painted silk. If you want to tackle the Tuscany Shawl but can't swing Amy's class, we always offer help from "non-celeb" teachers, who are also wonderful!

I wish we could have had Amy long enough to schedule a meet-and-greet but please consider coming to the No Sheep For You class on Wednesday night. It's less expensive than the Tuscany Shawl class, no materials or book required, and it's a chance to spend 2-1/2 hours with Amy and get a lot of great information and inspiration. Plus you'll get a 10% discount card that you can use should you choose to buy the book.

Hope this helps. We can't wait to meet Amy!

Can you get to Toronto? Here's why you wanna...

Starting with the fall issue, we're adding virtual yarn tasting to Knitty. In the spirit of Knitty, this will be a social, collaborative project where a group of us will gather around a huge basket of yarns from just about every yarn company on the planet, and get to touch, swatch, fondle and tell the world what you think of the yarn. We want to share our favorites with our readers and let them know about surprises that knit up much differently than the average knitter would expect from just looking or squeezing a ball. As is the custom with Knitty, stuff we don't like won't appear in our pages.

I'll be there as secretary and social butterfly for the evening, gathering your comments and evaluating which yarns will end up in the Yarn Roundtable feature each issue. We'll be holding the Yarn Roundtable nights at Alterknit -- a great and great-big space that's much nicer than their website [sorry, Terri, but it's true :-)]. They've got room for as many people as I hope will come [up to 20 per evening], and they also have refreshments available.

You want to come, don't you? We hope you'll join us! I've started a group at Facebook which you'll find here. Just click the link and join! Everyone is welcome. We'll probably hold two nights per quarter...maybe more. We'll see how it goes! If you're in Toronto or close enough to drive here, it's easy for you. For non-locals who occasionally drop in, sign up anyway just in case we cleverly [accidentally] schedule an evening when you'll happen to be here!

I'll be posting on the group's discussion board on the Facebook site about our first event, so join now!

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P.S. First event scheduled: Friday, July 20, at Alterknit. 7pm -- RSVP here!

a cupcake lived in Minnesota. then i ate it.

red velvet with cream cheese frosting.
Originally uploaded by amysinger

Look. Cover girl London came to the guild meeting in Minneapolis and brought me a red velvet cupcake...with cream cheese frosting. London, it was delicious! Thank you! I enjoyed it back in my room post-Annie [see her stellar recap of our day on the twin towns here].

I will honestly say that I was surprised to instantly fall in love with the twin cities as I did. I had zero expectations, except that I knew I was going to teach and speak and I wanted to do well at both. Maybe it was driving around with Annie, who glows with the love for her new home, but it really felt like it could be home to me, too. Keep in mind that I lived the first 6 years of my life in New Jersey, and St Paul feels like the best of that, but even nicer. More charming, well maintained, without a stitch of pomposity. I love 1930s-40s-50s houses, and except for one short stretch, every neighborhood was more charming and cozy and real than the one before it. If I ever moved back to the US, I'd put St Paul at the top of my search list.

The people of the twin cities are similarly charming and likeable. Summary: I had a hell of a good time in a short time. Thank you and huge hugs to Annie, the best tour guide the midwest ever had, and to Karen at Needlework Unlimited where she made sure I had everything I needed to run a lovely class [and it was, too!] and more.

Speaking of teaching, it's a fascinating thing. I have no dreams of ever coming near what Annie does in terms of mileage and endurance, but I do want to do a good job every time I stand up in front of a new group of knitters. I'm very happy to say that teaching the Tuscany class is a joy for me -- more than I expected it to be. I get a real rush when the students' lightbulbs turn on, maybe because I remember how much it meant to me the day I finally understood how to read my lace and stop agonizing over charts. Is good.

I'm now blissfully home until the end of July, when I head out west to visit three cities I've wanted to see my WHOLE LIFE. The Threadbear pajama party has been rescheduled for sometime later in the year -- probably Novemberish. I'll let you know when we've got a firm date.

Oh, and pictures? There are many. and you will find them by clicking on the little cupcake at the top of the post, or here, if you want the full MSP set all tidylike.

Had a hell of a time. Very glad to be home. Happy sigh.

Going to pet the bunnies now.

Silversmithy update: we have (almost done) ring!

I missed last week's class -- we attended a cool Luminato event. [Hub is a foley artist, and one of his friends was doing live foley to accompany the movie on stage. It was a brilliant show.] Anyway.

Back last night, and as usual, had a blast and love Sarah and her classes. Also big props to Jen who brought popsicles for all of us [it read 38c on my car's thermometer, for god's sake] -- salvation in ice + sugar. Yum.

Here's the progress from last night:

bezel wall attached to the base, sawed out [not badly for me], sanded for a billion years and then soldered. oops.


see that little dip in the bezel wall? it's at the front on the left. that's where i melted it. never mind. sarah says we can feex, so we are moving on.

we tried to set the stone, but after i'd sanded the bezel down to get rid of the melty evidence, the bezel wall was too shallow to hold the stone in place. so sarah feex for me by grinding out some of the bottom of the bezel.


she did this because, if i slipped [very likely], i'd have had to start all over again. na ga da*.


and her work allowed me to set the stone! it's in! it's in solidly! it's on my finger! i love it!

as you can see, there's still some finishing work to do. the edge of the bezel has to be sanded and smoothed and then i have to buff the ring. but i'm wearing it now anyway [oh, such a surprise! :-)] and will show you the finals when it's really really done.

meanwhile, i'm now in trip-prep mode for Albuquerque and Minneapolis [two more different cities? not possible] and must dash. however, i will say this...

Seattle (Bainbridge Island) -- July 24 & 25 (Churchmouse Yarns & Teas)
Portland -- July 27 (Knit/Purl)

Classes with these shops are almost finalized, and I'm hoping to add a date at Nathania, Sandi and Chloe's shop (Purlescence) in Sunnyvale, CA, that weekend. I'll be doing either the Tuscany shawl class or the No Sheep class [or both at some shops].

I'll have my laptop with me while I'm gone, so as soon as dates/times are finalized, I'll let you know. This is my first west-coast tour, and I'm ecstatic to come and hang with you guys on the left coast!


*you get this, yes? dana carvey doing gb senior in the late '80s.

post-issue randomness

Ah, the relief of another issue gone live without accidental amputation [it could happen, you know. one must be careful].

Here are the latest things on my mind:

1. When will I hear a yes or no from the SOAR people? I am on the edge of my seat with the waiting! Certainly no one would argue that I need me some serious spinning lessons. Today, maybe? Perhaps I'll hear today?
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2. Chiao Goo makes one hell of a small-gauge crochet hook. For some reason, above a size E [like I even know what that is yet], they change from this loveliness...



to a solid bamboo crochet hook that looks just about like every other. A plain ole bamboo round stick with the hook on the end. Why? I think they did the smaller ones in metal because they couldn't do them in solid bamboo, and as a result, have come up with something magical. The metal/bamboo hook is light, comfortable to hold and ridiculously affordable (suggested retail is below $4 a hook!). If they came in a full range of sizes, I'd buy a whole set. You may quote me on this.

So people...do you crochet? Do you agree with me that the bamboo/metal is an amazing thing? Write the company! I told them this on the floor at TNNA, but if a lot of you write them, they might actually add larger sizes to their metal/bamboo line. Here, this is their parent company's web page -- with an e-mail addy right there for you to use! Their sales manager's name is Juliana -- write and tell her what you think!
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3. My feet. Longtime readers know I've got crappy feet and Birkenstocks have been my salvation. A few good friends have been raving about the superiority of Danskos, so I finally sucked it up and bought a pair. In PINK leather.

Seriously. It's fuschia leather.

The arch is noticeably higher than in Birkenstocks, but not uncomfortably so. I find the height of these shoes amusing [I usually wear flat things] and have worn the shoes twice with socks with absolutely no discomfort. Early verdict: love.

For those who need similar footy gratification, see ShoeDawg.com.
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4. No one prodded about the Americo, but don't tell me you didn't want a little yarn pr0n with your Tuesday coffee.

Cotton wrapped in silk in charcoal and ice green-blue. 1 each. Yum. Don't ask what they're for yet. I don't know. That's half the fun.

Why I love Americo so much

Me at Americo during the TTC Knitalong on Saturday. Yes, I bought. Just a little more cotton/silk. Yummy.

Photo scoffed without asking [but with sincere thanks] from Michelle's flickr. You must click for big to see the yarns. Michelle took great photos of the day. Hopefully she'll blog with the stories soon.


[New Knitty is coming soon. Very, very soon.]

Still crunching...so here, meet Eunny!

I got the pleasure of meeting the new editor of Interweave Knits at TNNA -- ms Eunny Jang. Giddy with the cleverness of having brought my little iPod recorder mic thingy, I asked if I could chat with her and share it with Knitty readers. She nicely indulged my out-of-practise interview skills and now you can learn more about the woman who is now at the helm of one of our favorite print mags!

Listen here.

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P.S. Jillian and I were insane, gushing fangirls again at this show. Why? Because we got to meet Amy Butler. Herself. We totally fawned all over her, and she was so sweet and didn't even call security on us. She is tall, lithe, blonde and totally charming. And she's introducing a new line of knitting bags made from her fabrics in her characteristic style. [i.e. irresistable]. I'll be reviewing them in a future issue, but mostly, I just had to say this: AMY BUTLER! Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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Want some new Knitty? Take a break over the weekend and we'll see you early next week. Rock the casbah!

w00t!

So I'm in a frenzy of trade-show prep for TNNA this weekend! Laundry, lists, packing, repacking. What shoes???!? Instead of sharing further angst with you, how about this...a reminder of the happiest day in the year:

Yes, June 9 is World Wide Knit in Public day! Did you know that? Well, you do now! I'm not making this up. You can read all about the globe's knittish escapades here!

What are we doing in Toronto to celebrate this most specialist of days? Why, we get on the Red Rocket and knit from yarn shop to yarn shop, of course! It's the TTC Knit-A-Long, the most Toronto-y of Toronto-y knitting events! I'll be there...are you coming? Deets follow:

Registration is open and you can find out all about it on the TTC Knit-A-Long blog. The date is Saturday, June 9th and it's a yarn crawl that you won't want to miss. Plus there are prizes given out at the end of the day!

You will need to have a valid TTC pass [like the Daypass or your Metropass...or just a handful of tokens] and there is a $2 registration fee.

See you there!

woild traveller?

You know that jewelery class I'm taking? The one where I can't tell you what I'm making?

Well, I had a makeup session on the weekend [I'll have to miss the last class because I'll be out of town] and the surprise thingy came along very well! I promise to blog it once it's been delivered, with love, to its intended recipient.

I just wanted to say that, like with knitting, sometimes you need to walk away from the project for a few days and then skills you didn't have somehow magically appear and you're better at the same thing you sucked at just a few days ago.

Is good.

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Speaking of being out of town, you know I'm going to be teaching classes in a new part of the US, yes? I'll be in Albuquerque, NM, on June 15 & 16, and in Minneapolis, MN, on June 19 & 20th. I think there might be a few spots left -- you'll need to check with the shops to see if they can fit you in. Deets here.

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Okay, this last one is a stunner. It's starting to look very much like I may be in Norway [hence the flag at the top of this post] for the last part of October. Teaching classes and giving the No Sheep lecture. Stuff like that. It's all pretty shocking to me and very exciting!

Since I just might be in the vicinity around October 25th, I wondered if anyone has a shop and would like me to teach. Sweden, Denmark, the UK, France? I don't know when I'll be across the ocean again and it seems like a such a great opportunity to meet with knitters and spread the No Sheepy love and talk Knitty until the oxen come home! If you've got a shop or work with a guild and you'd like to see if we can make this happen, please write me at amy A.T. amysinger D0T ca and I'll send you more details.

What the heck, eh? It feels strange asking, but life is short and nothing happens unless you make it happen. :-)

Team Knitty takes up the challenge again!

Last year, Team Knitty continued our tradition of fundraising to help fight breast cancer...we raised more than $13,000[!], thanks to contributions from our readers and friends all over the world. That'd be people like you!

It's time to do it again! The walk takes place September 30, 2007, in Toronto [and at sites all over Canada] and there will be at least 10 of us fundraising and walking/running to do what we can to help!

How can you help? Simple. Visit this page and make whatever donation you can. You're donating in Canadian dollars, so US residents...your money goes even further! Canadian residents will get a tax receipt by e-mail -- just request it when you fill out the donation form.

The donation page is on the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's own secure server and they accept credit card payments. Even a dollar will help! Please give what you can!

If you hate credit cards but want to donate, here's a suggestion: send a check/cheque, payable to "Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation" to this address:
Knitty
2255b Queen St E
Box 527
Toronto, ON
M4E 1G3

I'll take all the checks/cheques that come in and make sure they get directly deposited to the charity . No fees to third parties and all your money goes directly to the charity.

Please be generous, and send your donation with a wish that this is the last year we have to raise funds to fight this disease!

Thank you for your support.
Amy & Team Knitty

She's back!

Long before there was a Knitty [like circa 1997], there was Wool Works: the online knitting compendium. I had the pleasure of meeting Emily in person, also before there was a Knitty, and was overwhelmed by her knitting knowledge and skill -- she was a steeker! She did Starmores in her sleep! So freaking cool.

Last night at Lettuce Knit, I saw Emily for the first time in a lot of years. She has a new wee girly bairn [so sweet!] and came wearing Inishmore. And bringing news...Woolworks is now being updated again! Very cool news, since this is one of the most comprehensive lists of all things knitting that ever lived on the web, including the cool list of North American knitting guilds that no one else has [as far as I know].

She's working on a redesign, and soliciting suggestions on her front page.

Welcome back, Emily! We missed you!