Where did this week month go?

Shocking that tomorrow is the first day of August, no?

I meant to blog much more this week, but was overtaken by various and sundry. The biggest timesuck was finishing the second half of my Sock Summit yarns, which are shipping out to Portland today. I mentioned earlier in the month that Kathy Elkins offered to sell BBF yarn at the WEBS booth for me since I just couldn't swing the cash for a plane ticket right now (not to mention the logistics of trying to ship yarn and the other things I'd need to set up a booth all the way across the country...). If all goes well and UPS does its job with the remaining boxes, WEBS will have 15 colorways of Superwash Merino Classic to sell -- including the colorways that I entered in the Ravelry Dye for Glory contest. (Voting is still open so if you feel inclined to vote for BBF, please do so before 11:59 p.m. August 1st!)

In addition to Mary Cassatt:

(entered in the Watercolors category), and the other watercolor-like colorway I did, City of Roses:


you'll find the nearly solids Betsy Ross (entered in the Out-of-the-Box category, since I don't use only black to create the subtle color variations):


and Kathy's Cape (inspired by Kathy Elkins' vacation photos!):


Kathy will also have a bunch of the sample socks from the book on display, so if you are in Portland, you lucky thing, stop by!

Another exciting thing that happened this week was receiving a copy of the new Knit Simple magazine, and turning to the very last page, to see my essay published there! Grab a copy.

Despite all of these yarn-y things going on, I still had 3 kids to entertain. Luckily, my mom came for a quick visit and helped immensely by playing endless games of Monopoly and Operation. (I was aghast to discover that the new Operation does not merely buzz when you touch the edges to take out the wrenched ankle, but now has all sorts of annoying sound effects to drive one's parents crazy. Feh.)

We did the ever-popular fruit-picking expedition on Wednesday; here are the kids in the hayride out to the peach orchard:


The peaches were huge -- the size of baseballs.

We also picked some amazing blackberries, which were also incredibly large and sweet:

and even a dozen ears of sweet corn, right off the stalk:

My mother hates having her picture taken and always wears an American-Gothic-like expression in photos, even though she doesn't have a mean bone in her body

I still have some catching up to do on the blog (I haven't forgotten that I owe you a book review) so I'll try to catch up next week. Have a great weekend, everybody.

Hear me, see me, meet me

I've been slacking off lately, eh?

Well, since last I blogged, I had the pleasure of podcasting with Kathy Elkins, the WEBS lady, who I dearly, dearly love (as well as her foxy husband Steve) and the show will go out Saturday morning; you can download it for free from I-Tunes, too.

I am pleased to report that I will be in Chicago next weekend (yes, I know it's TNNA in San Diego, but I'm skipping this TNNA so I can afford to go to the June one) celebrating the Inauguration a bit prematurely with my darling Franklin and also the Knitters for Obama group from Ravelry. If you live in the Chicago area, please come and meet me and get your books signed at Loopy Yarns:

• Friday, January 16th, from 6 to 8 p.m.

• Saturday, January 7th, from 1 to 3 p.m.

And the week after that, I'll be signing books at Loop in Philadelphia, on Sunday, January 25th, from 1 to 4 p.m. I'm hoping Jody Pirrello will be there, too, since she designed the kick-ass Chevvy socks that are on the cover of KSWHY.

I promise I'll post some real posts soon...

Updates (or today, it's all about ME)

Listen to me

You can hear my mellifluous voice on the WEBS podcast from this past Saturday; it's downloadable from this link or via I-Tunes. Kathy and I have a great time doing these and we talked about some of the things we were looking forward to in the knitting world this fall.

Read me

I'm also pleased to announce that I have become a staff member of Knotions, the new on-line knitting magazine, and one of my first regular jobs will be to do monthly book reviews. If you haven't discovered Knotions yet, the link is here. I'm waiting for my first review book to arrive. . .

Knit with my yarn

Today is a long overdue update to Black Bunny Fibers, featuring some limited edition yarns (meaning I can't rely on being able to get the base yarn again). One is a sportweight 100% Blue Faced Leicester, each skein about 167 yds/50g:



and the other is a cashmerino blend (80% superwash merino/10% cashmere/10% nylon); each skein is 113 yds/50g, so we're talking worsted to DK weight. I'm told 2 skeins will make a decent-sized pair of socks given the gauge, but this would also be nice for fingerless gloves or mittens.




Stop by Black Bunny Fibers around 2 p.m. EST if you're interested. I'm trying diligently to get caught up with my BBF stuff -- I'm working on shipments for the various clubs and general restocking of the store.

Exceeded expectations

Not to brag or anything, but I've been to a few yarn shops in my time. I've been to every Stitches for the last decade. I worked at a yarn shop for five years. I sell yarn out of my house! And so when I tell you, nay admonish you, that you simply must go to WEBS, you must believe me.

My expectations were high, I'll admit it. So when I drove up to that cheery blue awning, I was a little nervous. Could a yarn shop possibly live up to all the hype? I mean, this place has "www.yarn.com" as its URL. Would I be disappointed?


I didn't have to worry. For inside was the biggest, most amazing yarn shop I've ever been in. Ever. When I tell you that WEBS has everything, I mean everything: from Araucania to Zitron with everything in between. It is truly a knitter's nirvana.

The first thing I saw was a lovely table (with fresh flowers!) with Knit So Fine beautifully displayed on it.


I was distracted from the huge selection of yarns in the front room by some of the kindest, warmest people that ever graced a yarn shop, like Karen and Cirilla (did I spell it right? it's such a pretty name to go with that gorgeous face) and Gail (we're going to talk dye) and I even got to meet Pixie the crochet goddess, of webcast fame.

They plied us with popsicles (what we Philadelphians call "wadder ice") and lemonade and chilled spring water, and didn't make fun of me at all when I spent fifteen minutes looking around me with wide eyes, blubbering incoherently in shock and awe. But I had been forewarned by my crack research team to go straight for Teh Back Room, so as soon as I regained the power of intelligible speech, I asked Karen if she'd pretty-please take me there.

I'd heard, you see, that there are grocery store shopping carts (what old-school Philadelphians call "coaches") in Teh Back Room and quite honestly, I thought people were just joshing me (you know, like when you tell someone that the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?).



There are shopping carts in Teh Back Room.

Gentle readers, I filled mine.



My able assistant Elvis, who did a bang-up job of reading the map the whole way (saved me about twenty bucks' worth of gas in wrong turns, too) helped me traverse the aisles. You can't imagine what it's like. You look up one aisle,



and it's all Adrienne Vittadini closeouts (did I miss the announcement that they are no more?) in those luscious subtle colors they do did so well. Across from you are discontinued colors of some amazing yarn, say Berroco Pure Merino (you were right about that one, Franklin, it's a great yarn). Then something catches your eye and it's some fab Rowan yarn that you can't live without. Then, of course, I simply had to throw in a couple skeins of Nashua Superwash for the homeless veterans (you know how much I love my country).



It was insane.

Elvis, who is not the seasoned yarn shopper that I am, retired to the couch area to eat homemade brownies (thanks, Carol!).



I then tried to work my way through the front part of the store, but it was really just too much, even for me. I managed to snag some pattern books that I'd been ogling -- the new Elsebeth Lavold, Norah Gaughan No. 3 and Noro Joy were among them -- and then I met Hyphenated Carol's posse.



Kris and blogless Sara (no 'H') were fun and I've loved Carol for a while now, and I greatly, greatly appreciated that they drove all the way from Boston to see me. I also made a new friend, Knitting Dragon, who was on a massive road trip of his own:



And I got to meet Some Bunnys Love who is a Ravelry pal. (FYI, Mr. Some Bunnys Love: she did the right thing in bringing all the bunny photos. I loved them!)

Karen gave me the full tour (yes, WEBS is so big there are entire WINGS in addition to the store and Teh Back Room) and did everything but teach me the secret WEBS employee handshake (maybe next time?). I quite love Karen. I gave her three hugs before I left and I still think I owe her about two or three more hugs.

So when I tell you that you simply must go upstairs right now, pack a little bag (only a little one; you want to make sure there's lots of room in the trunk for all the yarn you're going to bring home) and pull out the atlas and find the fastest route to Northampton, MA, I'm not kidding. Even if you live in Togo or lower east Anchorage and you think you don't need to go to the real shop, because WEBS has a kick-ass website, let me tell you a little secret: there's stuff in the shop that is not on the website.

It's true.


Even Elvis wants to come back. After some amazing ice cream in charming Northampton, a dip in the outdoor pool AND the indoor pool



and several quarters in the Austin Powers pinball machine later,



he was in heaven, too. The next morning, I found Elvis filling out the hotel "How was your stay?" postcard. Where it said "How likely will you stay in this hotel again?" he had checked "Very likely."


Something tells me Elvis and I will be making that drive again real soon...

Thanks, Kathy and all the WEBS folks, for such a special visit! And thanks to the folks who came to the booksigning, too! Y'all rock.

Meet me tomorrow at WEBS!

I am so excited. Tomorrow, Elvis and I are leaving at the crack of dawn to drive to WEBS. I've never been, and I suspect this is one of those milestones in a knitter's life, like your first Stitches or Rhinebeck or something. I am going to be signing copies of Knit So Fine at 3 p.m., so if you are close enough to come, please stop by and say hi!

Podcast alert

A couple of days ago, I got to chat with Kathy and Steve Elkins, owner of (drumroll please) WEBS. Ah, WEBS. You can tell they are one of the all-time best places to feed your yarn addiction because their website's URL is www. YARN . com. I have always loved the way you get an automatic discount of 20 or 25% if you order over a certain amount (it's like working at a yarn shop without having to deal with pain-in-the-butt customers!). And they have the best sales. If you haven't checked out their Anniversary Sale, you still have a few days left. Amazing prices on the good stuff, like Berroco Ultra Alpaca, Cascade 220, Debbie Bliss Rialto DK (a really nice, supersoft merino) and RYC Wool/Silk (Steve put that one on sale just for me). I can safely say that Webs is one of those places that has my husband periodically saying to me "Do you think you could move some of this yarn into the garage?"

Kathy and Steve invited me to appear on the official WEBS podcast, called "Ready, Set, Knit" which you can find here. The episode I taped will be broadcast tomorrow morning (9 a.m. on station WHMP in western Massachusetts) and available for download on places like ITunes. I thank them for giving me a chance to babble on about KSF. And I hope I get to podcast with them again soon! (hint, hint)

For my Amurrican readers, have a terrific Memorial Day weekend. If you're near a computer, check back over the weekend: I'll be posting a No-Bull Book Review and also an interview with Laura Grutzeck, one of my co-authors.