No-Bull Book Review: Bambeanies, by Woolly Wormhead

I've got a big stack of books waiting to be reviewed, and now that the knitting crunch for the book is reaching an end, I'd better get cracking. Today's book review: a charming selection of hats for kids, by the designer Woolly Wormhead.

I first discovered Woolly Wormhead on Ravelry. It seemed as though nearly every time I encountered a wonderful, creative hat pattern, it was by this designer with the whimsical name. This past summer, I had the pleasure of meeting Wooly at TNNA and we got along like a house on fire. So when she emailed me to ask if I'd like to do a blog post about her new book, Bambeanies, I was only too happy to oblige.


Bambeanies can be purchased via this link as a print book or, for instant gratification, a PDF download. (The print book costs $23 while the PDF download is ten pounds, about $15.75 as of the time of this writing.) You can purchase the download on Ravelry, too, and if you fall in love with an individual pattern, they are available for purchase individually, too.

Woolly Wormhead is, as I mentioned before, known for designing fun and funky hats, often using creative structural techniques. Bambeanies contains a selection of 20 hats, shown on some adorable kids, but also sized, in many cases, for adults, too.

Aurora

The book begins with Woolly Wormhead's introduction, in which she explains her fascination with hats:

I love the challenge they can present with a new technique or stitch pattern, and how they can be used to experiment with an unusual construction. I love their 3-dimensional nature, and the way they can be worn to reflect a mood or feeling or favourite outfit. And most of all, I love their quickness and portability.

Woolly's aim in creating this collection was to showcase all of these aspects of hat knitting, providing fun for the knitter and the wearer.

Nupkin

The book next covers some technical information, beginning with sizing (including measuring, which size to pick, gauge and blocking); info about yarn, needles and gauge; a list of abbreviations; and several illustrations showing specific skills like kitchener stitch and different cast-ons.

Next up is the collection of hats -- a mix of unisex caps

Rocketeer

as well as a few which are particularly suited for girls.

Damsel

The hats are knit in a variety of yarns, including Noro self-stripers, handpaints and solids.

Corby (l) and Trullo (r)

The yarns used run the gamut from fingering/sock weight (2 patterns), to sport (1), to DK (6) and chunky (2), with almost half knit in worsted/aran weight yarn (9). All of the hats are presented in multiple sizes, ranging from baby or child sized through larger/adult sizes. Schematics are also provided for the hats, which isn't usual for hat patterns, but is helpful, especially for those hats with unusual construction.

Tipper

As you can see, the photographs are really adorable, showing these moppets looking very cute in all sorts of poses, with all sorts of expressions.

Queenie

(I like that the photos show kids who look like they're having fun, and who are making the cute but goofy faces that little kids often do.)

Tricable

The patterns in Bambeanies are awfully cute -- so cute that they made me want to put down what I was working on and whip out a couple. They would make adorable gifts for a baby shower, and given that breadth of sizing, it would also be fun to make a few for oneself! If you are looking for small, portable projects to showcase some of your stash, or perhaps enjoy knitting for one of the many service-oriented knitting projects (like Afghans for Afghans or Caps for Kids) that are looking for knitted caps, then I have the feeling you will find lots of inspiration in these pages.

So let's hear it for Bambeanies, a wonderful treasury of adorable and creative hats, with a generous size range, adorable photos, and a heckuvalotta bang for the buck (or pound).

Happy National Coming-Out Day!

Each year, I join in honoring my LGBT friends, neighbors and colleagues on National Coming-Out Day.



I salute your courage in being who you are in a world that often condemns you, misunderstands you and hates you. And I support your right to live your life without fear of discrimination, prejudice or mockery.

Peace and equality for all.

More about Portland

I've heard a lot of people rave about Portland, and having just spent a few days there, I can completely understand why Portlanders love their city. After our rainy Sunday, Monday dawned with a less damp weather forecast.

I was at ace photographer Carrie Hoge's studio bright and early in the morning. Conveniently, this was located right about the warehouse distributing Quince & Company's beautiful natural-fiber yarns.

Carrie and I got along really well. We spent a lot of time going over the finished items and talking about styling and photographing them. We spoke in very specific terms -- e.g. what specific garments would the models wear with each piece, how would each piece be worn by the model -- and in more general terms, about the overall feel we wanted each item to have. We also discussed which model seemed best suited to wear which piece, given their coloring, their overall "look" and the other clothing we have for them to wear. We even got to visit a lovely boutique called Bliss

where the owner and staff helped us pick some great clothing and accessories to use with our models. (So if you live in Portland, and need some clothes, go give Bliss some love! They're wonderful.)

Doing a photoshoot is a weird mix of exhilirating and excruciating. It's fascinating and exciting to see items that have been concepts and then skeins of yarn transformed into garments worn by gorgeous models. It's also interesting to combine different accessories and other clothing in such a way that they create a cohesive mood, without overwhelming the item you are trying to highlight. Picking an exact location is also tricky; you want something interesting but not too busy and distracting.

At the same time, there is a tediousness about the process -- endless attention to detail and repeating shots. Is the dress she's wearing wrinkled? Steam it. Does the scarf need to be re-draped? Fix it. Is a strand of hair obscuring the model's face or the cowl she's wearing? Is the light right? Does the background detract or add to the shot when things are finally in place? There's lots of retaking, moving, trying this and that.

Fans of Little Miss (and based on the emails and comments I receive, there are many of you) will be pleased to learn that she received a commission to model 2 garments for the book. She was a consummate professional. She looked straight into the camera and wowed us all. She even managed to get her brother to act as impromptu personal assistant and stylist:

Tuesday was another rainy day, so Carrie and I did more styling stuff and also took some still life type shots inside, without live models. It was amazing how fast that day went by even though we didn't do any photography with models. Monday and Tuesday, while I was busy with photoshoot stuff, Tom kept the kids busy with sightseeing

including lighthouses and the ocean,

and the Observatory. Of course they acted like they liked swimming in the hotel pool the best!

Our last day in town was Wednesday, and just as we were packing to leave, the sun came out. We finally got to see Portland under truly sunny skies.

We managed to cram in an early-morning photo shoot (we began at 7:30 a.m.!) and then around noon, my family came to collect me, having packed up all our stuff.

It was time for the long ride home. Here's the Tappan Zee bridge, but we still managed to spend way too much time in car and we were all cranky by the time we got back.

Unfortunately, I can't show you any of the photos from the actual shoot; you'll have to wait until next fall to see them....

So that was my whirlwind trip to Portland, Maine. It's a great city and I love Carrie Hoge. I hope I get to go back again and visit sometime. In the meantime, things are moving along with the book process....

Portland, ME

It's been a whirlwind few weeks, but right now, folks, I'm in a hotel room in Portland, Maine. The photo shoot for the book begins tomorrow, and an extremely talented and wonderful photographer based in Portland is doing the photographs. Since I've spent much of the past few months telling my kids "Sorry-I have to work," we decided to make this a mini-vacation for them, too. They are so excited to be out of school for a few days, even if required a long car drive.

Of course there are million last-minute things to be done. (I won't be more specific in case my editor reads this blog.) Our drive up was fine, except for some spots of traffic, and we are now settled into a hotel with an indoor pool. Portland is really fun, even though it's been raining and misty since we got here.

The weather being so meh, we took our first day to check out the unbelievable LL Bean flagship store in Freeport.

We tried to wander around the city a bit, but it was teeming rain and not a very good day for it. We're hoping for better weather tomorrow.

Test shots will begin tomorrow, and then we'll begin with some photos that don't require models. I'll keep you posted. I'm hoping to make it to at least one yarn shop before we leave, preferably the one that sells the beautiful Quince & Co. yarns.

Til then, we're enjoying exploring this lovely city, nomming seafood, and spending some family time together.

California bound

Finishing up many things and getting ready for my trip to VK Live -- LOS ANGELES tomorrow! I hope to see some of you there. Please flag me down if you see me and if you're able to come, there are still some openings in a few of my classes.


Full scoop when I get back...

Peace.

With all the media coverage about today's tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I have been uncomfortably aware that this day was approaching. We see slogans like "Never forget" and "We remember" and while I appreciate their fierce determination, I don't see how anyone who experienced those days firsthand could ever possibly forget. On the contrary, a part of me wants to forget, or at least wants to avoid reopening the wounds caused by that day.

Those days in September 2001 were horrifying. That horror feels fresh. And in the wake of 9/11 came new, subtler horrors: uncertainty about how to live in this post-9/11 world; guilt and anger at the mistakes we made in the days following 9/11; frustration at our inability to prevent another massacre from happening again; the painful struggle between the normal human instinct to avoid danger and our determination not to let evildoers rob of us our way of life, or the pleasure we take in our freedoms.

As much as I want to forget, though, I can't. And I won't, because the people who died on that day deserve to be remembered. The goofy red-headed guy who used to stumble down our hall freshman year and once peed into the drain of a broom closet thinking he was in a bathroom. The sort of shy but sweet guy who took me to a semi-formal in college and whose friendship I would appreciate a lot more now that I'm not an dopey 18-year-old fascinated with the college party scene. Both died in the Twin Towers. Tom's cousin who works at the Pentagon and survived because he had a doctor's appointment that day, but carries that survivor's guilt as he remembers the friends and colleagues he lost. The incredible passengers of Flight 93 who learned what was going on in midair, and instead of doing something understandable, like praying (or drinking all the booze from the flight attendant's cart, which would have been my choice), decided that they would use their own deaths to spare their fellow citizens. The first responders who put thoughts of their own safety second, as they, incredibly, headed into the collapsing buildings to help survivors.

None of them deserved to die. All of them deserve to be remembered.

I tried so hard to come up with some thoughtful and meaningful way to end this blog post. But I don't know how to make sense of a senseless event. So I'll just wish you all peace.


Peace.

Jinx

If I believed in magical thinking, I'd be certain that I jinxed myself in my last post. You might have thought, as I did, that I'd exhausted my quota of natural disasters for the short-term, but apparently I did not. Within the last 48 hours, my 80-year-old mom had to evacuate her home after massive rainfall from Tropical Storm Lee caused the Susquehanna River to rise precipitously.

My family lost everything in the 1972 Hurricane Agnes flooding, so this brought up all kinds of frightening flashbacks. The particular neighborhood that my mom lives in is about 200 or so feet from the Susquehanna, but protected by a very large levee.* The levee was designed to protect from 41 feet of water, and projected totals were very close to that amount. The mayor of Wilkes-Barre ordered evacuation of about 65,000 W-B residents, including my mom. She was safety ensconced in my brother's house, along with essentials and irreplaceable items like family photographs. My brother carried all sorts of other items up to the top floors of the house in the hope that if the flood waters came, they might not reach the second floor or attic.

Last night was dicey. The river was supposed to crest around 2 a.m. but apparently the water gauges were damaged by the weather conditions and water and malfunctioned. We learned today that the river did crest, albeit at over 42 feet (more than projected) but the levee system had a few extra feet built into it that prevented the water from flooding. Phew. The river level is currently dropping but it's a much slower process and there is now concern about the levee system holding up under the weight and pressure of the water over the next day or two.

Market Street Bridge in downtown W-B
Photo from Times-Leader newspaper

Right now, my mom is safe; she has flood insurance; and she has plenty of people who love her and will make sure she is okay. If you can spare a good thought or a prayer (if you're so inclined) that the levee system will hold, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Nothing is more dangerous than a stressed-out dike.



*Lest you think that the entire W-B community dodged a bullet, there are many areas within a few miles of my mom's house that have already suffered devastating flooding -- Nanticoke, Tunkhannock, Shickshinny and others. Having suffered something similar as a child, my heart breaks for them.

I'm back

As George Constanza might say, "I'm back, baby, I'm back!" If you'd told me a few weeks ago that by Labor Day, I would have experienced an earthquake, been evacuated due to a hurricane, lost power for the better part of a week, and had our local Chili's burn down, I don't think I would have believed you. Yet all of those things did happen, and while I'm swamped with overdue work, I'm glad that we have finally weathered all the literal and metaphorical storms. The kids went back to school yesterday and we're starting to get back into a routine. Our family and our house are doing fine, for which we are very grateful.

One exciting thing that happened in the last week was seeing some preview photographs of two projects that I knit a very long time ago (nearly a year ago) for Interweave Knits -- Holiday edition. Behold the Watercolor Beret, knit in a self-striping sock yarn



and the Overshot Mittens (I didn't name them, so I am not sure what the name means, although I think it's a weaving term maybe?).


These are very special because they are knit in St-Denis Nordique, one of my all-time favorite yarns. Think of all the fun you could have selecting your own two colors to make these:



like Magenta with Bottle Green, or Elephant with Blue Eggshell or Spicy Rose with Silver. The full palette is here (now with online ordering for Nordique yarns!).

The next few weeks are going to be insane here, as I try to finish up various deadlines, including a number of book projects, shepherding other people's projects to completion, and finishing the manuscript. I probably won't be posting as often until October...Don't give up on me, though, peeps!

Bad bad Irene

Okay, maybe I did call Irene a "moistened bint" and also threaten that if she were a real woman I'd kick her in the taint. And maybe I did mutter some words unmentionable in polite company in reference to the local power company. You see, after being evacuated from Cape May rather abruptly on Thursday night, a long and stormy drive home, and a weekend full of wind and rain, we lost power. After the storm was over, when a neighbor's tree came down.

That was Sunday afternoon, and we're still out of power. Now I am fully aware of how very, very lucky we are. Everyone is safe. Our house is fine. All we lost were 2 days of vacation time and a fridge half-full of frostbitten food. My heart goes out to all the folks who are truly suffering as a result of Irene. (And as someone whose family lost everything they owned in 1972 after being evacuated at 3 a.m. for Hurricane Agnes, I have a sense for what that means.)

With no power, three rammy kids and school not starting 'til next week, it was time for desperate measures. Yes, my friends, we fled to Nana's.


The land of Chuck E. Cheese, a working freezer full of Fudgsicles and an 80-yr-old woman with WIFI. Ladies and gentlemen, my mother rocks.

Back in rare form as soon as I'm able....

West & wewaxation

It's that time again....



the last week at the shore.



When kites are flown


sandcastles built



and memories made.


See you next week!

Just added.....

some lovely half-silk, half-Falkland British merino sock yarn to the BBF website.

Decadence

Dulcet

Blue Nile

Each skein is 435 yds/100g, and most colorways had 2 dyed-together skeins uploaded at the same time for larger projects.

Autumn Ridge

Copper Rose

There's also some Heavenly laceweight from my last update, and some bamboo-blend sock yarn still in stock, too.

Plus through midnight Friday, August 19, I will ship all orders free. (If your order is under $25 of merchandise, I'll send first-class mail, over $25 will go Priority Mail. I'll refund shipping when I process your order.)

Have fun!

The Book Process: Part 2

Part 2: Sealing the deal

If you've gotten an offer from a publisher, what happens next?

Two things. First, you have to come to agreement on the terms of your deal. You might negotiate specific points with the acquisitions editor first -- like the amount of your advance, the percentage you will make on each copy of the book sold, and deadlines for the work. Some items will be pretty flexible while others will be set in stone. Which are which depends on the publisher and the editor.

Some publishers of knitting books are craft-book specialists. They may be corporate relatives of a knitting magazine (think Sixth & Spring, Interweave and XRX). Others are publishers of all kinds of books who include craft books as part of their business (think STC, PotterCraft, Lark and Krause). The extent to which you can negotiate may also depend on how "corporate" or "crafty" a particular publisher is.

Popular Misconceptions about Book Contracts

1. You will get a lot of money.

Not likely. There are a lot of book proposals out there, and a lot of people who consider knitting design to be a sideline to their regular profession (meaning they will accept less because they aren't doing just knitting design for a living). The bigger the knitting name you are, the more influence you have to get a bigger advance (because there will be more competition to sign you, and because you are a surer bet to sell lots of books). A past experience with the publisher that turned out well may also be a point in your favor when it comes to the amount of an advance -- if your last book sold really well, say.

A friend once told me that she was asked by an acquaintance if she was making tons of money on her book. The acquaintance said "So do they give you, like, $150,000 or something?" Hah! You're lucky if you get in the $5000 to $20,000 range, depending on on a lot of different factors, like how big the publisher is, how famous you are, and so on.

2. You get to keep all the money in the advance.

Maybe, maybe not. Different publishers do the deal different ways. Some give you an advance that is all yours to keep, and the publisher also has a separate budget to pay for things like photography, styling, tech editing and other designers who might contribute patterns. Others give you an advance from which YOU are expected to pay various costs -- tech editing, photographer and stylist, contributing designers. You may also have the option of either hiring people like tech editor and photographer yourself and getting a larger advance OR receiving a smaller advance and letting the publisher do the photography and editing (and paying the photographer and editor directly).

No matter what, though, you have to do the math.

Say you get an advance of $8000 (I just made that number up; no, I will not tell you how much my advances have been, nosey-pants.). Suppose you are doing a multicontributor book, and you need to solicit designs from about 18 other designers. If the publisher has a separate budget for designs, and is handling all the photography, getting paid eight grand and keeping it all for your work on the book is not bad. But think how quickly that money gets eaten up if you have to pay all 18 contributors out of it. Suppose you are doing a hat book, and suppose (just to make the numbers easy) that each contributor gets paid $250 for their pattern. That's $4500 of your advance, over half of it, that you have to pay out to others; you are really only getting paid $3500 to write the book and design the patterns you are contributing. That may sound like a lot of money, but there's a lot of work involved in writing a book. Just the number of emails that I deal with on a weekly basis answering questions, researching things, getting information out to my contributors is a substantial amount of work, let alone designing, knitting, writing and editing.

Likewise, if the publishing company agrees to pay you $30,000, you may be jumping for joy. But if you've got to pay a photographer at a thousand dollars a day to shoot the pictures from that money, not to mention models, a stylist and tech editing, that money is going to get eaten up awfully fast.

Update: MMO points out that you also have to pay taxes on this money, as a self-employed person, further eroding the take-home amount.


3. You can negotiate exactly the terms you want in your contract.

Unlikely. There are certain provisions that the publisher won't budge on. They won't change a single word or even eliminate a measly comma that doesn't belong there anyway. Other provisions may be open to negotiation, like amount of advance, and dates for deadlines.

But overall, the publishing company has most of the power in these negotiations by simple virtue of the fact that lots of people want to write books and only a few can get published each year. That means if you are displeased with a provision or term of your deal, and the publisher doesn't agree to change it, you may end up having to decide if it's worth it to suck it up and go forward with the deal, or walk away and not do the book.

4. It's not worth it to hire a lawyer to look at the contract.

That all depends on you. Are you comfortable reading technical material? Do you have a better-than-average understanding of legal terms and concepts? Are you planning on asking for very specific terms? Do you do this for a living or as a lark?

I am fortunate in that I'm a lawyer and my husband is a lawyer. So we are very comfortable going over legal material and interpreting it. (No, we will not review your contract for you for free.) You have to decide for yourself whether the expense of hiring a lawyer is worth the comfort of knowing that you were advised by an expert. Of course, for some folks, hiring a lawyer is prohibitively expensive and in this case, you've got to do your best to understand exactly what you're getting yourself into, perhaps with the help of the library and Google.


After you agree verbally on terms, then the publisher will send you a written contract. Getting the contract signed is the second step of the process. You make sure the terms reflect the deal you agreed to, suggest any changes to the language that are necessary are desirable (the publisher may accept or reject changes, probably rejecting most of them), and sign. At some point after that, depending in part upon how the particular publisher works it and on what deal you struck, you'll get a check for (typically) half your advance. You'll get the second half when all your work is done.

Dale of Norway lovers.....

rejoice! I have been informed that Dale patterns are in the process of being added to the already-massive collection at Patternfish. Two patterns available now, an adult and a child's, with more coming soon. These are web exclusives, so you'll have to go to Patternfish to get 'em.

Check it out

I am once again honored and thrilled to have a pattern in the new Vogue Knitting. Behold:


The scarf features a lace motif along with some drop stitches for fun, and the sample is knit with luscious Buffalo Gold Lux yarn.....and I will freely confess that given all my book stuff going on, I took advantage of an amazing test knitter who did the knitting.

Available in the Fall VK -- and you can see the preview of all the patterns here.

Quilting FO: Owen's Baby Quilt

A few months ago, I started a baby quilt for my friend Kristin. Kristin and I met and bonded on a Ravelry forum; I then became a fellow moderator on that forum and we bonded even more. When Kristin announced she was pregnant, I was delighted and decided that given all my knitting deadlines, I would opt for making a baby quilt instead of something knitted.

Kristen told us that her nursery colors were chocolate and lime. It's a really modern-feeling combination, so I looked for a pattern in my modern quilting books. I opted for the "Blockheads" quilt, from the very cool Dare to Be Square Quilting by Boo Davis (I read about her in the New York Times a while back and she sounds really fun; she describes her style as "I make modern heirloom quilts just like your metal-loving half-blind Grandma would."). The pattern consists of a number of squares within squares, done in all solids -- except I decided to leave off the faces. (This is a version of the pattern done with the faces in case you're curious.)

I rummaged through my solids and found several limes and some chocolate brown. I had thought about making the quilt in all solids but couldn't resist the chance to use some cute prints, especially since it was for a baby. So I went to Spool, where Laura and Craig helped me find some prints that were very cute and also which read like solids, including a bird print and some fake wood (that reminds me of the side of the station wagon our family had when I was a kid). Having heard Kristin say that she didn't understand why all boy-related baby stuff has to feature transportation, I was very careful to avoid anything with wheels, but I figured fake wood was not too transportation-y (my personal synapses notwithstanding). When I looked at the solids and the prints together, I was pleased.



It didn't take long to cut the pieces, and I fiddled around with block placement

before sewing the blocks together. Once the top was finished, I realized that I had subconsciously made it very brown, so I decided to find a lime-colored fabric for the backing (dots!).



I quilted it by hand, mainly because I already knew how to do it and I was afraid to practice my machine-quilting on a gift. It didn't take that long, though, and I found it relaxing to hand-stitch it. I am not sure my technique is perfect, but it seemed to work just fine. I quilted about a quarter-inch inside each square, and I used green thread on the green squares, and brown thread on the brown.


I had originally planned to use the Woody-Wagon print for binding, but the fact that the front was reading so brown deterred me. So I changed my mind, and used pieces of the leftover lime green solids, and added some strips of colors that were a little lighter and darker than lime, but close enough.



I was very happy when I realized that I had already improved my binding skills since my previous quilt....much more consistent and professional-looking.

I was pleased with the finished quilt, shown here being held by one of my helpful assistants:


I think the greens are a little deeper and less yellow-y in real life, but the photo gives you a sense for the overall look. Right now, the quilt is winging its way to Chicago to (I hope) be snuggled by its intended recipient.

And I know that I am very sarcastic and ironical most of the time, but it must be said that when working on a project like this, for a cute little baby of a dear friend, I put a great deal of love and hope into every stitch.