Things I learned at TNNA this year

1. Flying is much less scary if you take an Atavan first and if you have Kathy Merrick and Laura Grutzeck with you. Likewise, having Kathy Merrick with you is much less scary if you take an Atavan first. (KIDDING!!!!! I love Kathy and she knows it.)


2. Clara Parkes can curse like a sailor in perfectly-accented French.

3. I learned that it is possible to go through airport security with an inflatable man in your bag without raising an eyelash. However, Laura learned if you are rooming with someone who carelessly leaves their deflated inflatable man on the floor and you trip over him in the middle of the night on your way to the bathroom, all hell breaks loose.



4. Kristen Rengren really knows how to grab one's ass.

5. It doesn't seem quite fair that Amy Butler is not only exceptionally talented, but also tall, thin, blonde and gorgeous. And really, really, really nice.



6. Kathy and Steve Elkins are even more adorable in person than they are on their podcast.



7. Jillian Moreno can wield an olive baguette like nobody else.


8. Having a full-body scan at the airport did not make me feel violated at all. This may have been because I was traveling with an inflatable man in my bag and was distracted thinking about being pulled out of the line for a suitcase search ("Officer, it is an inflatable man." "Doesn't everybody travel with an inflatable friend?" "But it wasn't on the TSA list of prohibited items!" "Tom, can you please come to the Super-Max Prison and bail me out?").



9. Grace Anna Farrow has an extremely exciting new project in the works...


10. We have many reasons to envy our Canadian friends, including universal health care AND Kindereggs.


11. Rhichard hugs on both sides so that your hugging experience is orthopedically balanced. And the Koigu yarns are more gorgeous than ever, if that is possible. Swoon....


12. Trisha Malcolm remains a minx. She has the habit of buying me glasses of wine, then pouring them down my throat without mercy, no matter how hard I protest. I love her dearly.


(On a related note, I'd like to apologize to the nice lady from Jimmy Bean's Wool for tipsily and probably incoherently babbling about how great their website is. Heck, consider this a blanket apology to anyone in the Hyatt atrium Friday night who had me drunkenly babbling at them, including Deb Stoller:



13. The sweet potato fries at the Tip Top are quite excellent.


14. Certain people who ruthlessly canceled at the last minute were deeply missed.



15. Every time I think I could not possibly love Ve-ve more, I do.

Various & sundry

A few months ago, we sighted a fox in our neighborhood. We were excited at the rare opportunity to see such a beautiful wild creature closer than we'd seen one before. As the spring came around, the fox seemed less afraid and we began to see him more often. Alas, we got a letter from some neighbors on the street over saying that they'd seen the neighborhood fox acting oddly -- sitting in the middle of the road in the middle of the day,


hanging out on someone's porch (!), and so on. Someone caught a close enough glimpse of the fox to see what looked like the telltale foam around its mouth. Rabies. We haven't seen the fox lately, and the local animal control department thinks it probably died of rabies. Which makes me sad.

The day we heard about the fox the twins spent an hour looking out the window, debating whether the squirrels had rabies because they were "acting funny." I was of the opinion that gorging on fallen birdseed was a perfect appropriate thing for a piggypants squirrel to do and they shouldn't worry about it.

In other news, I'll be heading to Columbus, Ohio, on Friday for TNNA, and I had just barely enough time to sneak one last BBF update in -- today I uploaded twenty skeins of lovely half-merino, half-silk, in a fingering weight, called SoftSilk.

Tutu

Elephant

Autumn Breeze

I probably won't get a chance to post for a few days, so look for some quickie updates on Facebook or the full scoop next week.

May Book Report

Sorry it's been so quiet around here. I always forget how the knitting world jumps into high gear in June in order to be ready for the big seasons of fall and winter. It's unfortunate that this happens to coincide with the end of school for my kids -- things seem to get extra-hectic around this time.

I'll be heading out to TNNA on Friday for the annual "yarn convention," as my family calls it. I hope to run into some of my favorite fiber people there, and I'll try to bring back some previews of what we have to look forward to this fall.

In the meantime, here's my book report for May:

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. This is a book I might not have read but for the fact that I saw a review of it in the New York Times book section, then had the chance to score a free copy from Amazon's Vine program. The book consists of a set of interrelated chapters that are really short stories. Each story/chapter is written about one particular character who is connected to an English-language newspaper being published in Rome. Rachman does an excellent job switching perspectives, while building a cast of interesting and interrelated characters. His sadness at the economic crises now facing print-only newspapers is palpable. Definitely worth a read.

Elegy for April: A Novel by Benjamin Black. I read the first book in this detective series, set in 1950s Dublin. The main character is a medical examiner named Quirke, who grapples his own family dysfunction and alcoholism while stumbling over complex murders. This particular book left me unimpressed; the author was trying to make the book more meditative and more of a character study than a mystery novel per se, but I found it a bit plodding. It was another Vine selection, so at least I had the satisfaction of not having paid for it.

Silvermeadow, by Barry Maitland. I am enjoying the Brock/Kolla detective series, and this installment is set in a huge shopping mall (think Mall of America set in the English countryside). A girl disappears and her body is found in a trash receptacle that originated at the mall. Brock and Kolla get subsumed by the odd and all-encompassing character of the behemoth mall, untangling a mystery that is more complicated than they first suspected.

The Scent of Rain and Lightning: A Novel by Nancy Pickard. Another Vine selection -- but one which I enjoyed and raced through. I first encountered Pickard's writing a while back, in a series of mystery novels that booksellers would probably call "cozies." Later I discovered some of her stand-alone novels, and have enjoyed them. This novel takes place in Pickard's native Kansas, set on a cattle ranch. The main character, Jody, is the daughter of a rancher who was murdered when she was three. As the story opens, the man convicted of her father's murder has been released from prison. His son, now a lawyer, doesn't believe he's guilty of the murder and is trying to figure out who did. A solid & engrossing mystery with a great sense of place.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. This book was my Mother's Day gift, and I very much enjoyed it. It's a look at King Henry VIII's court through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell. Long, but it never drags. My only nitpick is that I found Mantel's use of antecedents for the pronoun "he" to be maddeningly obtuse. She has the habit of referring to Cromwell simply as "he" or "him," but immediately following paragraphs in which she uses "he" to refer to another character. Otherwise well-written and well-researched, and a darn good read.

Death in the Garden by Elizabeth Ironside. A mystery set in both 1920s and present-day Britain. The main character, Helena, inherits a house from her great-aunt, at which time she discovers that her great-aunt was tried for the murder of her husband and acquitted. She isn't sure whether the great-aunt was guilty of murder and just got lucky with the jury, and before she can comfortably use the house, she decides to find out what really happened -- at least enough to satisfy herself about her great-aunt's guilt or innocence. The first twenty pages or so didn't immediately pull me in, but after that, the story starts to move quickly, shifting back and forth from the current time to the 1920s.

Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery by Scott Higham and Sari Hurwitz was based largely on a Washington Post investigative series looking back at the Chandra Levy disappearance. Levy was a Washington, D.C. intern who disappeared, seemingly into thin air, in May 2001. It's hard to remember the pre-9/11 world, but that summer seemed to be nonstop coverage of Levy's disappearance. When reporters discovered that she'd been seeing a married Congressman named Gary Condit, media interest became insatiable, and Condit's shady behavior -- trying to conceal his affair to save his political career and marriage -- just added to the speculation fueling the media circus. Currently, a suspect -- a Salvadoran immigrant who was previously convicted of attacking two joggers in Rock Creek Park -- is awaiting trial for Levy's murder.

Higham & Hurwitz do a good job of piercing through the sensationalism and summarizing the case, with unflinching attention to the missteps of the Washington police and Gary Condit, without which Levy's murder might have been solved sooner. They treat all the characters in the case with a fair bit of compassion and sensitivity. The book leaves you wondering about the effect that the media can have on a high-profile police investigation, as well as the arrogance of politicians who think the ordinary rules don't apply to them.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer. I thought I couldn't get any more outraged and contemptuous for the administration of George W. Bush, and then I read this book.

Krakauer tells the story of pro football player Pat Tillman, who left the NFL in the midst of a promising career to enlist in the Army Rangers following the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration was intrigued by Tillman from a public relations standpoint -- NFL standout gives up lucrative career to fight terror! -- but interestingly, Tillman himself was unconvinced that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was necessary and desirable. Tillman was killed by friendly fire in the hills of Afghanistan. This would be a tragic and senseless death under any circumstances, but what makes the story particularly galling is the way that the Bush administration and the upper echelons of the Army hush up the real facts about Tillman's death, instead spinning a made-up story about how Tillman was killed defending US soldiers from an ambush. Particularly disgusting is the manner in which Tillman's family is treated. Seeking to find out what really happened, they are fobbed off, have their spiritual. values mocked and are repeatedly lied to.

The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron, was another Vine selection that I chose because I read a good review of it in the NY Times. The book is set in Maine, and the main character is a game warden, Mike Bowditch, who discovers that his ne'er-do-well father is accused of a double murder. Bowditch knows his father is a petty criminal and a drunk, but just can't believe he's a cold-blooded murderer. He decides to do what he can to uncover the truth and clear his father's name. This was a quick read, with a creative setting and plot, lots of twists and turns, and interesting characters.

That's my book report for May; don't forget to comment and tell me what books you've read lately that you have liked.

An interesting development

Quince & Co., and for those of you on Facebook, here. A new yarn company with top-notch pattern support... and a drool-worthy yarn called "Puffin" described this way:

We love this plump and chunky single-ply. It's soft and rustic with a misty, matte finish—almost as if the strand had been lightly felted. Can you tell from the photo? Knit Puffin on size 11 needles and you have pliable, warm fabric that would make a great pair of mittens for the dead of winter....

A little birdie told me that Pam Allen is involved in this venture, and since I'm a huge Pam Allen fan, you can bet that I will keep you posted on this. . .The company is set to launch in the next few weeks.

p.s. Happy birthday, Véronik!!!

More purty things

Small update today on the BBF website: a new base, Heavenly Sport, which is the same base as Heavenly Lace except in sportweight, and skeins of 400 yds. The 70% baby alpaca/20% silk/10% cashmere blend is luscious and takes color beautifully:

Rembrandt

Monet

I'm also trying out a wool-free sock yarn, called "Sheep-Free Sock", consisting of 44% cotton/43% acyrlic/13% nylon:


It's nice for those allergic to wool, or if you're looking for something for warmer months. These cool light colors would make nice lace ankle socks, for example.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Quiet here

Not much to say here (for a change!) so here are some purty photos from our yard:

Snowball Viburnum

Peony

Clematis

Save the date: June 27th, 2010

My oldest kid needs braces, so it's time for a BBF Orthodontia Open House!

model provided by Little Miss

Sunday, June 27th, 2010
Black Bunny Fibers Open House
chez BBF
more details to come

We had a great time at the last one, and if the weather cooperates, y'all can hang out on the patio as well as in the living room, and knit. Um, and drink wine....

If you were wondering about the recitals last weekend, rest assured that they went beautifully. Little Miss proved to be a graceful and adorable Ladybug:

and look at my handsome kids as we get ready to leave for the piano recital (which also went beautifully!):


So all is well in Black Bunny-land. Have a terrific weekend!

Checking in

This is my oldest on his way to the jazz band concert.


The concert was amazing. His group had only been playing together since February and still were quite impressive. It was especially cool to watch the kids improvising for their solos and seeing them get into the music.

Now we are preparing for recital-palooza. Tomorrow, Little Miss appears as a Ladybug in a ballet performance of "Snow White," and both Little Miss and her older brother are playing in a piano recital on Sunday. My mom is here to see it all and we're really happy to have her. I will try to post some photos later.

There are still some great skeins left from this week's BBF update, both miniskeins and llama-shetland lace, and some great wild multis in Superwash Merino Classic:

Rubik's cube

Pac-Man Fever

I'm also very pleased with the JumboSox skeins: 600-yd skeins of Superwash Merino Classic, so that if you like making kneesocks or want to be sure you've got enough for a shawlette, you're covered. (I also think thirty bucks is quite a nice price, especially if you use the free shipping code on the home page!)

Hungry like the Wolf

All You Zombies

Otherwise, not much going on. I've got some more book reviews in coming weeks, but right now is when the knitting world starts to hunker down to get ready for fall and early winter publications, so there's lots of knitting and writing and swatching going on here.

P.S. Don't forget to toddle on over to Mindy's blog to wish her a happy, goat-y birthday!

Blog Tour: Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts

I am thrilled to be a part of the STC blog tour for Kaffe Fassett's Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts: 23 Original Quilt Designs (STC 2010; MSRP $35.00, but available via the link for $23.10 at the time of this writing), by Kaffe Fassett with Liza Prior Lucy. Many, I hope most, of you knitters are familiar with Kaffe Fassett's non-quilting fiber work. He's a frequent contributor to Rowan Magazine; has written beautiful books like Glorious Knitting, designs needlepoint, paints, and, of course, is involved in creating beautiful fabrics for Rowan with which he creates unbelievable quilting designs.


But who is this Liza Prior Lucy (as in "by Kaffe Fassett with Liza Prior Lucy")?

Well, Liza Prior Lucy is one of the most accomplished people you'll ever want to meet in the fiber world. When I first met her, I had no idea who she was or all of the things she'd done: needlepoint design, a longtime presence in the knitting world, and now the goddess of patchwork.

So how did Liza Lucy end up as collaborator and right-hand gal to the esteemed Kaffe Fassett?


Go back awhile in time. Liza Lucy was sales representative for several big-name yarn companies; her territory was Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. One day, Liza was in a shop that was selling a Kaffe Fassett knitting book. "I'd been knitting for years and I'd never seen anything like it," she remembers. "I immediately bought six copies of it. One for me, one for my mother, one for my cousin, and so on."

The next day, Liza got a call from someone asking her to add a new line of knitting yarns to her portfolio. Liza grumbled. "I kept saying no, I already represented all the best knitting lines. I said my suitcase was already too heavy. I kept saying no." Then she heard that the yarn company was working with a designer with an unpronounceable name, "Coffee Faucet," or something like that. Liza realized who it was, and immediately added that yarn line to her portfolio. Yes, dear readers, that little new yarn line was Rowan.


After Liza added Rowan to the companies she was representing (and rued the fact that if she'd waited one more day "I could have bought those six books at wholesale!"), part of her job became working with Kaffe Fassett to sell his knitting book. "Part of my job," Liza remembers, "was to take Kaffe around to the shops in my territory to booksignings. We went all over New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And no one showed up." At the time, book signings weren't regularly held for crafting titles, and shops that couldn't harness the power of the internet-- remember you young 'uns, there was a time in the crafting world when there was No Internet -- didn't have the tools they now have to get the word out and create buzz surrounding author/designer visits. "We went from shop to shop, and no one came. So we got to spend hours together yakking and getting to know each other."

Kaffe and Liza hit it off. They both had grown up in small towns and loved them, even as they knew they had to leave their small hometowns to do the work they wanted to do. They liked the same music and the same movies, and the similarities laid the ground for a strong friendship.



Several years later, Liza was pregnant and starting to do patchwork quilting. She sent Kaffe a postcard asking him if he wanted to do a quilting book with her. Kaffe wrote back, saying "Nice hearing from you, keep in touch." As Liza recalls, "He never came right out and said no. He may have meant 'no, thank you' but I never saw the words 'no, thank you' so I figured he hadn't said no." She began working on quilt designs, looking at Kaffe's other work and adapting some of his knitting motifs into quilted ones. He would write back with critiques and suggestions -- "that one needs a bit more yellow" -- and the foundation for their working relationship was born.

When Liza received a phone call out of the blue from a woman looking to sell a Kaffe Fassett painting that she had purchased in the 70s, Liza, who was considering buying it, first asked what the subject was. "She said it was a patchwork quilt. I said yes. Later, Kaffe saw the painting, and after that, I think we both knew it was meant to be." The world of fabric and quilting was changed forever when Ken Bridgewater and Stephen Sheard agreed to start Rowan Patchwork & Quilting Company out of friendship and support for Kaffe and Liza. Kaffe not only had a place to showcase his designs, but a supportive company to develop fabrics that he would design.




Four books later, umpteen fabric patterns later, the working relationship between Kaffe and Liza has endured. And the latest fruits of their collaboration is a spectacular addition to the fiber arts world.

Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts contains exactly what the name promises: it takes a handful of simple geometric shapes -- the kind any first-grader would know -- and shows how to turn them into spectacular quilts. The book, just under 200 pages long, is divided into six sections: Squares, Rectangles, Triangles, Diamonds, Quarter Circles and Circles. Each section begins with a montage of photographs featuring the shape in art or nature, followed by a few pages in which Fassett discusses how the shape inspires his work. Next, the quilts themselves are featured in gorgeous photographs and in many cases, alternate colorways. The patterns and instructions for the quilts follow, with a full-page photo of the quilt laid flat, and lots of color diagrams showing how the quilt is constructed.


I will freely confess that exposure to Kaffe and Liza's work has turned me into a quilter -- or at least someone who dabbles in quilting. The striking patterns of the fabrics, the combinations of colors, the way that shapes play off each other, all of these aspects of Kaffe and Liza's quilting fascinate me and make me want to play with fabric myself. But since my audience of readers is primarily knitting, what does this have to do with you?

Everything, really. The beauty of Simple Shapes is that you don't have to be a quilter to take away so much from the book. Simply as a coffee table book, full of gorgeous photography (done by Debbie Patterson), the book is worth the twenty bucks or so for its beauty alone. But as a knitter, we don't have to stick with knitting patterns for inspiration. Simple Shapes is full of color and interesting color mixes: fodder for combining color in your knitting projects. Simple Shapes looks at different shapes and combines them to form spectacular quilts: as a knitter, you can use shapes, either in knitting modularly or as motifs in your work. Simple Shapes shows individual geometric figures that anyone can see in the world around them and applies them to quilting: you as a knitter can look around in your world and find shapes and color combinations and textural effects and incorporate them into your knitting. I'm a believer in the subconscious aspect of creating, and even if you don't set out on a field trip to look for, say, hexagons in your daily life, just the exposure to this way of thinking will, I think, meander around in your subconscious and come out in interesting ways in your knitting and/or crochet work.

So this knitter (and peripatetic quilter) highly recommends Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts for anyone and everyone on your fiber-lovers list. It's eye candy, and worth it for that reason alone, but it also has a lot to show us about color, design and the creative process.

For more Kaffe and Liza quilting fun, check out the STC quilt-along here. There's a free download of a pattern, and links to a Facebook group where you can quilt along with others.

P.S. to my regular readers: update at the Black Bunny Fibers on-line shop went live yesterday, with mini-skeins that would be just perfect for using to play with color and shape...

April Book Report

Wow, last month went fast. Here's what I read:

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym. I'd never read any Barbara Pym before, and Wendy highly recommended her. What a treat! Pym writes from the perspective of one of those "excellent women" -- an unmarried woman in her 1930s, volunteering at her church and living what appears to be an unremarkable life in 1950s London. Pym writes with humor, charm and wit. I'm definitely going to seek out more of her writing.

The Chalon Heads by Barry Maitland. Another Kolla and Brock mystery, concerning a kidnapping and a valuable stamp set asked as the ransom. I found this one slightly less engrossing but it was entertaining and twisty.

The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham. Yes, I'm mad about Maugham. The main character in "The Painted Veil" is Kitty, a beautiful but shallow woman in London who panics when, at the age of 25, she is still unmarried. She rushes into a marriage with Walter Fane, a serious & reserved doctor who is about to move to Hong Kong to work for the British government. Walter adores Kitty but she can barely tolerate him, and after they are settled in Hong Kong, she begins an affair with a consular employee. The novel begins as Walter discovers their affair -- and vindictively gives Kitty a choice: either move with him to a remote, cholera-stricken part of China, where he will work on treating the disease, or get a divorce. Kitty realizes that the consular employee has no intention of leaving his wife to marry her, so she goes with Walter. Out of this inauspicious beginning, we see Kitty's transformation as her exposure to a different culture, different sorts of people, and the harsh poverty and disease of the province elicit her better nature.

Different from the first Maugham I read, but equally affecting in its simple and elegant but very powerful storytelling.

Still Midnight by Denise Mina. I've really enjoyed Mina's previous books, all mystery/suspense novels set in Scotland, but this one -- which I got an Amazon Vine review copy of -- disappointed me. I found the shifting narration to be jarring. The characters were flat and unconvincing, and the vast majority of them were unlikeable, including the lead detective, Alex Morrow. The story just didn't seem to have any meat on its bones; parts (Pat's infatuation with the kidnap victim's daughter) were unbelievable, parts were extraneous (the entire side story about Alex's half-brother served no discernible point), and much of it was dull.

The Moon and Sixpence, by Somerset Maugham. A heavily fictionalized version loosely based on the life of painter Paul Gauguin. Very different in feel from the previous two Maughams I read: more old-fashioned and ornate in language, with a more self-conscious style and a first-person narrator. One central theme is the nature of creative genius, and how society ought to treat geniuses -- the artist's compelling need to create, whether possession of great talent can excuse or mitigate the possessor's repugnant actions, male/female relationships when one party has genius or talent. I liked it, but not as much as the other two.

The Devil's Starl by Jo Nesbo. I read Nesbo's previous two Harry Hole books as part of my Scandinavian mystery binge of the last year or two, and although they were all good, this one is my favorite so far. Inspector Harry Hole is one of the best detectives in Norway -- but at the beginning of "The Devil's Star," he's a mess. In previous novels, he's struggled mightily with his alcoholism; lost his beloved police partner Ellen to an unknown murderer; and wrestled with his suspicion that a colleague is corrupt (and may have murdered Ellen). These plot strands continue to snake through "The Devil's Star."

As the book opens, Harry's in the middle of a major bender and has gone AWOL from work. He is reeling from breaking up with his girlfriend Rakel, and he's about to get fired. But after he's given the equivalent of two weeks' notice, Harry manages to pull it together and join an urgent investigation for a murderer. We see Harry's desire to find the killer warring with his self-destructive need to drink. We see his suspicions about colleague Tom Waaler -- chosen to lead the investigation -- deepen. And we see Harry's insight and intelligence, notwithstanding his personal issues, help move the investigation forward.

The action was gripping from the get-go and suspense steadily builds right through the end. The plot is complex and contains enough twists and turns to keep even a crime-novel aficionado guessing. And Harry is a fascinating character with plenty of complexity and inner conflict -- his longing for normalcy, his struggling with his drinking problem, his attempt to maintain regular human relationships with both his girlfriend and colleagues, and the self-destructive disdain for authority that most good fictional detectives seem to have. Now I've got to wait for the next one in the series to be translated and released in the U.S.

My Antonia by Willa Cather. When I read "Death Comes for the Archibishop" a few months ago, a friend who is an English professor told me that I would like "My Antonia" even more. I did. My initial impression: like "Little House on the Prairie" for grownups -- but that doesn't do justice to how beautifully written it is, or how well the novel works on so many levels. Heartbreaking at times, optimistic at times, characters with complexity, much that is said but even more left unsaid, with strong feminist undercurrents. An elegant portrayal of life in a midwestern prairie town in the late 1800s, but also a novel of love, loss, longing and grieving for a past and a way of life that are gone. Best of all, now I can debate with my English professor friend all sorts of things, like whether Jim is a reliable narrator, and which Cather book to read next.