Hazy, Hot, and Motionless

Oh, I really hate this weather. We are all wiped. Give me winter and a wool sweater anyday. I had to give up gardening because I thought I was going to pass out. Growing up, we had a pool and so I have been spoiled for life. Thank goodness for fans and river streams.

The cats know what they are doing though. They just lay there as still as possible knowing that the more they move, the more uncomfortable they will become.

It won't stay like this forever, that I know.

Knock, Knock, Knock

Not many people come to my door. When they do, they are either 1) expected; 2) delivering a package and really wondering if they will find the place; or 3) lost. With my guinea hen alarm system and no doorbell in sight, a loud shout and bang on the door will usually get me to answer. It’s like that around here – that’s why most folks call before coming to our door to find not a soul at home.

Yesterday, I found our young neighbor Tom at my door. He told me he had something for me, something I have been thinking about getting but hadn't gotten to purchasing yet.


Tom works at the local livestock auction and he has been watching out for me but this year, for some reason, piglets have been in short supply. He jumped on the chance Tuesday to grab these (literally) for me. He sure is quick at reaching in, grabbing a leg and depositing a cute little piglet into our pig palace.

This morning they escaped and I still haven't gotten them in. It seems that one woman and two dogs can't gather three piglets. I'll have to call in reinforcements tonight and hope we can contain them.


We haven't named them yet. Right now they are 65, 66, and 67 and they are all females. Any ideas? And yes, they will be someone's dinner.

Works in Progress

I’ve been out in my garden (finally) for the past few days. Last year, I didn’t have a lot of interest in it, mostly because we were infested with wasps and I got stung too many times. This year, I decided not to let the wasps keep me away and bought some nasty spray to eradicate them. I don’t like to use chemicals around here because of all my animals who free-range but getting stung and not being able to enjoy the spaces I have built just didn’t make sense either. Happily, the wasps aren’t around too much this season. I’m ready for them if they start to multiply.

I've been digging and weeding. Two years of growth without weeding surely isn't a good thing. It is good exercise and hopefully I will keep interested - maybe even enough to actually have friends over for a garden party. It is so hot though that if I don't tackle it early enough it isn't pleasurable.

Every year I plant a lot of zinnias for bouquets in the house. Usually I order seeds from Johnny’s up in Maine. It goes like this: I order too many seeds. I put them in the ground too close together. Then I fail to weed and thin them quick enough and I end up with a disaster. I always get blossoms but it ends up looking a mess by the end of the season. At least we live at the almost end of a road and I don’t have to worry what the neighbors think. I really love that about living here. No neighborly peer pressure for a perfect lawn or a neat flower bed – so totally unlike where I grew up in NJ.


Back to the blossoms. This year, I decided to purchase plants from the fine folks at Walker Farm in Dummerston, Vermont. They grow lots of varieties of plants I really like. I'm hoping that by putting in larger plants, they will get a head start and I won't have the mess I usually end up with. Stay tuned. Walker Farm is a fabulous place - they were featured in the NY Times a couple years ago and if you are going to Green Mountain Spinnery and like to garden, I highly suggest a visit.

There really isn’t anything I don’t like about zinnias. The colors are bright and cheerful. They give me lots of blooms with relatively little work and once they get going, they don’t stop until the frost kills them.


At the end of last summer, I was contacted by the folks at Mary Englebreit’s Home Companion. They told me they were doing a feature on zinnias and asked if I would make up some zinnia inspired embroidered things for the feature. I was overjoyed because I have been trying to get in there for years with no success. I made up some zinnia colored bookmarks and espadrilles with embroidered zinnias and sent them off. When you do stuff for magazines, it is always a crapshoot. Things can get pulled at the last minute because they need a page for an advertisement or because plans change. But if you do get featured, magazines such as these stay around in people's houses because they are beautiful and have lots of fun decorating ideas in them. I didn’t hear back from them until March when a writer called and asked a few questions. Good sign – maybe it would happen. Fingers crossed until......

Yesterday in the mail, I received the August/September issue of ME Home Companion. No note or anything – but there they were on pages 54 (small photo of my espadrilles and page 58 (a full page of my bookmarks). Those sweet people even called my book Colorful Stitchery a how-to bible. Boy, am I flattered.


So, if you subscribe, look for the photos. The pictures here I snapped before sending them off to be photographed just in case the projects were never returned (happily, they were).


Thanks to everyone at ME Home Companion – for writing about embroidery and letting me contribute a couple projects to inspire your readers. Congratulations on your ten years of publishing this inspiring publication.

Bluebell Thoughts

When I was a little girl, we moved across town to a bigger house with a bigger yard. The place was more accommodating for our family of six. Shortly thereafter, my youngest sister Jenn joined us. We moved into the house on the hill in November. My dad loved to garden and he was really looking forward to shaping this bigger space into his own little masterpiece.

The woman who had died in the big house had been a bit well-off, as they say. She had a maid/nurse/gardener who ended up taking care of her in her failing health. The nurse was from England and so she put her own little touch on the place. The garden had a definite English feeling to it with long sweeping borders.

The first spring, the woodland beds were full of a plant my mom told us were Virginia Bluebells. They came out early in the year and had lovely oblong leaves and nodding heads of blossoms. As the blossoms aged, they turned a lighter shade of blue. Each year, we waited for Daddy to say, “The bluebells are blooming.” We would all go outside and look at them and oooh and aaaah. I’m not sure if this is how it happened, but I like to think it was.


After the blooms were through, the bluebells would shrivel up and die away. The foilage turned brown and then they would be gone. Mysteriously, the next year, they would re-appear, like old friends who only visit once a year.

When we bought this farm and were starting to make a garden, my mom arrived with some shrivelly looking plants. She said these were “the bluebells.” Her advice was to just stick them in the ground and forget about them til the next year. "Don’t worry how bad they look, Kristin. They'll be beautiful next spring."

I didn't worry. Nasty looking plants never scare me. The next year they bloomed. And the next. Their roots must spread underground because now I have my own little colony just beginning.

The bluebells have started to "go bye" as they say here in New England. I've used them to inspire a little yarn color grouping so I can knit the bluebell memories up next winter.

Bucolic Scenes via It's a Purl Man

The interview I did with Guido Stein of It's a Purl Man is up. When you get a chance, take a listen. Guido is such a fun guy with a witty sense of humour - I enjoyed talking with him. Too bad I kept turning away from the microphone - sorry, I fade in and out a bit. Guess I'm not used to such things. The interview got slightly cut off in the beginning. He asked me a question about where we live and what the word bucolic means. The interview starts out with my answer.

Here's the link to find the interview: Brightly Colored - Kristin and Julia's interview with Guido of It's a Purl Man.
Here's the link for the download.



This is what I consider a "bucolic scene" from our farm. These pretty flowers were blooming in the beginning of June. Knit and enjoy the listen. Julia is even interviewed at the very end.

Thanks so much Guido.

We're Down to Eleven

Cats, that is! Yes, truly nuts. But they are outside the majority of the time. The last two kittens - Templeton and Fern - are spoken for and will be leaving here in July.

Friday night, Theresa from West Hartford and a knitter who has taken workshops with me picked up our sweet little kitten Toby. Theresa is the mother of 3 boys - ages 16, 14 and 11. She has been "cat-less" for seven years. She had a black cat when she was young and so Lily Pons' handsome black kitten Toby will join her family and hopefully get control of the rodent situation and keep her company at night while she is knitting.

Julia and I went to the Greenfield Farmer's Coop Exchange after mailing some emergency packages at the post office. I had to buy a new garden fork (I broke mine the other night while attempting to start weeding my garden). While we were there, we picked up 6 guinea hen keets (or baby guineas in regular language).


We chose 3 "Pied" - they have white chests and right now stripey backs and 3 "Lavender" which as Julia says are not really lavender - they are a light greyish-purple shade. Click here to learn more about guinea hen colors.


Our first official spring here in this farmhouse, I decided to order guinea hens from Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa. The minimum order was 35 keets. I did it, even though I really didn't need that many, nor did I have adequate housing for that many birds since they would be living with my chickens. I was just desperate to experience guinea fowl. It's the polka dot feathers that truly get me! The 35 guinea keets arrived after my initial order of 25 exotic chicks. In the past, I had had a lot of experience with raising chicks and figured guineas would be the same. Surprise, they weren't. First of all, they are much wilder and more like game birds. They fly very well. They escape and have more "wild" sense than chicks. They need different food - that which has a higher protein content.

We raised them in the kitchen until I was tired of them - it seemed like we had chicks in our kitchen that year for at least 2 months that spring. With a year old, not yet toddler named Julia, and a border collie puppy, and two new kittens, it was all a little more than I bargained for. One morning, I decided, that was it. The guinea keets were flying all over - they were ready for the real world.

At dusk, The Farmer helped me move them to the official chicken pen which had recently been fortified to stop hawks, raccoons, and whatever else might find my poultry tasty. It is best to introduce new birds to a coop in the evening. That way, the established population is better able to accept the new birds (chickens can't see very well at dusk).

Guinea keets are very nimble and wild. They've got much better "wild" survivor instincts than chickens. We let them go inside the confines of the pen. The Farmer and I watched as all the keets escaped the poultry fence. Off they went into the deep grass that had not yet been mowed. My investment was fleeting before my eyes with Julia in my arms, not able to walk nor crawl yet. It was a madhouse.

I set Julia down in the grass, much to her annoyance. The Farmer and I herded and gathered as many keets as we could. It was very hard to find them. We had released about 30 keets. We caught 19. We put them on our screened in porch and there they stayed for about a month until they were too large to escape the chicken wire netting. It was a nightmare I hope never to repeat just cleaning up after them. All for the sake of keeping poultry.

I have loved keeping guineas. First and foremost - they are as noisy as all get-out. In the middle of the night, they alert me to wild animal trespassers. During the day, they let me know if a stranger has driven up. And when I am expecting company, I just need to wait for their interesting alarm. When I occassionally let all my chickens free range, it's the guineas who go the farthest. They fly into trees or roost on top of the coop. Eventually, they return. I think they know the coop is the safest place for them with all the wildlife out here.

We'll never know where the 11 keets ended up. Our neighbor Alicia swears she saw feathers last summer of a guinea. Hard to believe they could have survived that long in the wild.

So, we lose a kitten and gain 6 guinea hens. Am I up or down? What do you think?

p.s. Got a distraught call from Theresa this morning. Her overzealous large dog wanted to kill Toby so he has moved across the street to a large Victorian owned by a crocheter and her family. They lost their cat two months ago and so are happy to have Toby.

Over the Kitchen Table Knit Chat

I have just read an interesting post at The Knitting Curmudgeon (June 12, 2007). I enjoy Marilyn’s dry sense of humour and honesty. Today she posed a question about knitting bloggers becoming authors. I have found the comments very interesting. You should probably read all the comments there before you go on with this post.....

This fall, as by now all of you know (sorry), I’ve got my new book “Kristin Knits” coming out. This is the 8th book I have done (one – Kids Knitting - I only illustrated). The publisher (Storey, the same as Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s) took my book and named it Kristin Knits. For the record, the title was totally not my choice – I thought it should be called Colorful Knitting to co-incide with my last book Colorful Stitchery – but what do I know, I just write the book. Most publishers do what they want, following all their bells and whistles forecasting, focus groups, trend watching, marketing people, sales people mumbo-jumbo. The author is a conduit to their product. Once the author turns their version of the book in, their job is done. The publisher turns it into the book. They hope the author doesn't become "difficult" and voice their own opinion.

In my humble opinion, being on the outside as only an author, but a knitting and craft book author who follows trends, news, and publishing somewhat – I think most publishers are just grabbing at straws. A lot of publishers – but not all by any means – are not experienced in publishing knitting books. But the trend now is for knitting books. Knitting books are selling, knitting is still in the media brouhaha and so they (many publishers inexperienced with publishing knitting) are all hopping on the little bandwagon. I, for one, do not know how far and long the little bandwagon will travel. The blogs on the web are an easy place for a publisher to find an author. Writing samples are there, projects abound. An editor can find a good blog and mold it into a book with a bit of work. The blogger has an audience that is usually built in sales. But not all bloggers' books are going to sell to the mainstream, non-blogreading knitting world (like most of my friends who knit, my mom and my sisters who also all knit).

It amazes me the crap that is out there in bookstores. I personally do not buy a lot of knitting books. Cookbooks, artbooks, farming books - yes. Knitting books - I look at them with interest but I usually don't buy them. And I’ve been lucky enough to know the publishers and have gotten the ones I want for free over the years. (I'm a frugal Yankee! Now my contacts have dwindled and so I might have to spend some hard-earned cash.) It takes a real lot for me to buy a knitting book. There has to be good wordy content, historic and ethnographic information and possibly some really drop-dead photos - then maybe I'll buy. If I want to knit something, I design it myself.

If you have been in the yarn business for a while, you know that sales go up and sales go down in a natural cycle. I totally missed the most recent crazy upward boom cycle. I guess it was unfortuante. But thinking back on it, I most likely would have been paid the same amount, knowing my situation, and worked 80 zillion times as much. I quit that gig and chose to lay low and take care of my child. I looked from the outside in with amazement as knitting continued to gain momentum and press ad infinitum. I am not at all sad that I missed the boom. For me, knitting isn't a trend – it’s a bunch of wooly (although beautiful) string and a couple of sticks that make a beautiful loopy end-product that you can wear and enjoy.

Knitting is just one of my interests. At this point, I consider myself an artist (okay, not famous, but an artist – that’s what I am) who works in a bunch of different mediums. Color is my thing and the way I translate it right now is paint, pattern, knitting, and embroidery. My art is an amorphous thing, not stuck in any one genre or technique.

Back in 1999, I wanted a change after all those (16) crazy years of the yarn and knitting thing. I chose to go in a different direction – one that I dearly love – embroidery. I wrote two books - Kids Embroidery and Colorful Stitchery. Although beautiful books which I am so proud of, they didn’t sell as well as I had hoped. And so, when I had the strength and felt I could tackle the whole knitting thing again, I proposed a new book which has become this thing called Kristin Knits.

How well will it do? I sincerely do not know. I hope for the best and move on. I started my blog last year so that I would start to be known again to the knitting world. There's a whole bunch of knitters who have never heard of me nor would recognize my work if they fell over it. I doubt many of them read this blog. This blog was something I could do from my little basement office, find a voice, and call it my own. I have loved doing the blog and it has become something I didn’t think it would ever become. I’ve shown sheep giving birth, I’ve let people in on the nature that flourishes here in our little corner of the world. I’ve introduced people to chicks and sustainable agriculture and sunflowers. With my blog, I’m trying to get my word out on how I think about color, design, and handwork – whatever kind it is – and how my little family and I live - hoping people in the city who may not have the opportunity will learn something. This blog is a lifestyle thing – and it reflects who we are.

I’ve heard from people all over the world which has been the most fun part of it all. I check my silly stats to see how many people have read me and where they are from. My blog is my way of connecting with the outside world without leaving my physical space. Right now this thing fits into my life with my daughter, The Farmer, and our farm and fills a part of my life which I don't have now (water cooler chatter).

I don’t know if my blog will help the sales of my book – I sincerely doubt it. I haven’t had any publishers knocking down my door because of my blog. Maybe it does happen but I think you have to be a bit more outrageous in your writing and life than I care to be.

This leads me to this question. If I were a big-time publisher, who would I be chasing? What genres would I be looking to publish? What is the next big thing? I wish I knew. Unfortuately book SALES ($) are what publishing is all about here in the USA (and not only publishing but every business - dollars, dollars, dollars). Publishers (and all businesses) are all just trying to stay alive and competitive in this harsh business environment.

I think we as knitters should be happy there are so many choices out there to pick and chose from. Do you remember what it was like in 1995 when my first book Knitting the New Classics came out? I’ll remind you – it was the ONLY knitting title published that fall season. My how fickle we knitters have become – complaining there aren’t any decent books out there. We should remember what it was like then and be happy. I for one am. Now, if I have an idea and want to get it pubished, I’ve got a better chance of a publisher taking a financial risk on it than then. How long will it take for the tides to turn the other way? Who knows? I have chosen to take advantage of it now, while I can and move on. Not that any of us are beoming rich on it.

Stripes

When I think of stripes, I usually think of neat and orderly lines, of like sizes, repeated in a pattern to make a fabric. Sometimes the line sizes vary but they are usually in a pattern of some kind. Lately I have been seeing stripes of a different kind - stripes in nature.

Stripes in the green spring landscape


Stripes on the baby raccoon tails


Undulating stripes on the Jack in the Pulpit


Broken shadow stripes on a leaf from the fern above


Stripes on the chipmunk's back


The stripes I have encountered in nature have made me think about the stripes I make in my knitting. Usually, but not always, they are even and ordered. Usually they repeat, although not always tightly and neatly. Here are some new little stripes I have been fooling with - inspired by the stripes on the creatures and green things I have been observing the past couple weeks as spring unfolds around me. Right now they are just little bits of swatches and ideas. I don't know where they will turn up but it has been fun playing with them.

These stripes were inspired by the chipmunk and the raccoons:


These stripes were inspired by the forest stripes. I was playing with textures and greens, aquas, and brownish greens.


Like with everything I do, some were successful swatches but some weren't. My swatches are a good record that I refer back to over and over again.

Changes

Everything grows up and moves on. Sometimes it is heart-breaking to watch it happen even though there is so much joy in it too. Julia has just a few more days of school left and then she will be moving on to the third grade next fall. I think she is ready and looking forward to it.


She’s had one of her first life lessons this past weekend. The first kitten, “Mr. Charlotte” has gone to his new home in NJ. There was a week of tears and still more flowing when his name is mentioned. My sister Laurie says this is why families don’t get involved with having litters of dogs and cats – because it is just too hard for the kids. It’s also why we have nine adult cats. (Yes, I know - out of hand - thank goodness they spend the majority of their time outdoors.) We just couldn’t bear parting with any of the past litter's funny personalities. But this time I drew the line and they are all leaving. We have homes for two of them that will love them dearly. I'm working on the last home and have two good leads.


After Mr. Charlotte left, his mom Lily Pons looked for him for a couple days but she seems to be over it. I don't think I will be so nonchalant when Julia leaves home. Thank goodness it is still years away but the time certainly does fly. I've been cleaning out some closets - a chore I absolutely abhore - and found bags of baby clothes. Off to the Salvation Army they went - hopefully to find a good home who needs them too.

Chicks A-Cheeping

Visit our kitchen in the springtime and chances are you’ll find a box of peeping, cheeping chicks. Last week, I got “the call” from the post office. My chicks from Murray MacMurray Hatchery in Iowa had arrived. We look forward to this day every year.

This year, we are trying Polish Top Hat chickens. I’ve had these chickens in the past and they are very docile birds who lay white eggs. They live a long time and add a bit of ornate pompom-ness to the coop - something a knitwear designer like me genuinely enjoys. And the kids love looking at them too!


I also ordered some Silkies, a bantam (miniature) breed I have been fascinated by. They grow into white puffballs and remind me of angora rabbits. Another fiber connection.


The last breed we got are called Cuckoo Marans. They are large chickens and rather old-fashioned looking - with grey and white striped feathers. The allure for me is the dark chocolate colored eggs. Won't my egg basket look pretty next year with blue, olive, buff, white and chocolate colored eggs?



It seems that Chicken Fever is sweeping the country. No, I'm not talking some obscure bird disease. Chicken Fever is the lure of keeping your own chickens. It's exciting to see so many new people enjoying keeping birds. I just finished a quick, very fun read by Catherine Goldhammer called Still Life with Chickens. It's about a woman and her daughter starting over in a new house with six chickens. The chickens thread through the book helping the author and her daughter start over.

This morning I took the photos of the chicks in front of some colorfully painted pages from one of our children's books called The Painter who Loved Chickens. Olivier Dunrea paints and tells the stories of a man who follows his dream to live on a farm and raise and paint chickens by selling his artwork of eggs and chickens. It is a delightful story for all ages.

Many years ago in an antique bookstore, I found a book from the 1800's called The history of the hen fever. A humorous record by George P. Burnham. (It has just been reprinted by Michigan Historical Reprint Series.) I read it through quickly - I was fascinated with the fact that in the 1800's, hen fever - or the collecting and keeping of exotic chickens - was extremely popular in the United States. History always repeats itself. Maybe it's time for chickens to have their day.

Lilacs in a Amethyst Glass Bottle

Last May at the Brimfield Flea Market, I snagged three dark purple glass bottles from a vendor who came from Canada. They were right in my price range - not much - and they were a beautiful color. I had visions of piling old-fashioned lilacs into the openings and setting them in my kitchen window. The added bonus was that I have kept them in my windows all year round and they cheer up the landscape with their beautiful color when it is bleak and cold.


Our old-fashioned lilacs have gone by for the year but I've got these photos to remember them by. Now, I'm looking forward to blooms from the Asian lilacs which I have planted since I have lived here. I can't say I am quite as fond of them as the taller, more wild looking shrubs that have probably been living here for over 100 years. But they do lengthen the bloom time.

Here are some recent knitted swatches inspired by the colors in these photos.

Reading... checking.... and more reading

There's been a lot of this


going on for the past couple of weeks. I think it is the last time I'm going to see my manuscript until it is in the actual book form. Luckily the weather was nice and I was able to sit in my little fenced garden and read through all the patterns again. See the kitchen timer there? That's to give me an idea of how long it takes me to do a pattern. The post-its work nicely for corrections - I just have to be sure to write legibly. What you can't see is the little kittens playing at my feet and a hen and a rooster chasing them around. The kittens have just begun going outside and they are treating my overly large hostas as sun and rain umbrellas. So cute.

A knitting book goes through many phases, many of which I know knitters never think about. Mostly knitters gripe about mistakes in the patterns which I realize is totally frustrating. It's not like we authors and the publishers try to make mistakes to frustrate knitters. Sometimes, they just happen.

Just to give you a little insight into what I do to a pattern and then what happens to it after me, here's knitting pattern and book timeline.

1. I swatch and take notes and then write a pattern for a knitter to follow and test-knit.
2. The knitter makes the project, sends it back with notes for changes and mistakes.
3. I tweak the pattern and get it ready for the publisher. I calculate yarn amounts, adjust sizing, and re-check the pattern.
4. I send the entire collection of patterns to my editor at the publisher. For Kristin Knits, there are 27 patterns.
5. The editor sends it to a technical editor. This person is someone who specializes in correcting knitting patterns and making sure everything is okay for the knitter. They also fit the pattern into the publisher's style (every publisher has a different one). A good tech editor is worth their weight in gold.
6. The "tech-edited" patterns go back to the editor at the publisher.
7. A sample layout is designed for all the patterns to fit into. A book designer does this. They are called sample pages.
8. After the layout has been tweaked a few (or a zillion) times, the patterns are dropped into the format. For me, this is a critical time which I have no control over. It makes me kind of crazy to think about and so I try not to. Patterns have to be massaged to fit into the pages given for a particular project. This means words can be cut. I always just hope important words aren't cut so that the pattern is do-able.
9. Finally, the pages come back to me and I get to read them and try to catch any errors, ommissions, etc. I try my best but by this point, I haven't looked at the projects in a very long time and have designed many more since. It almost gets to a blurry, hazy point - almost like trying to remember what I did back in high school or before I had a child. I send the pages back and won't see anything more until I have a finished book in my hands.
10. A copy editor reads everything and tries to make sure everything is perfect.
11. Someone compiles an index.
12. After a few more steps, which I am totally not clear on, the book finally goes to print.

Who was to know it would be so complicated but trust me, it is. As we speak, I am hoping for the best. Hoping for no mistakes. Hoping for beautiful color reproduction. And hoping you and lots of other knitters will like it.

What I missed...... and didn't

I missed the two big trade shows I should be concerned about this weekend. BEA (Book Expo) was in NYC at the Javits Center, and although I was not officially invited, I could have gotten in and it would have been interesting. I've always wanted to go but never have.

The second, and the one I am most familiar with, was TNNA – The National Needlework Association in Indianoplis. It was the big Fall Trade show and for almost twenty years, I went to it, set up the booth, sold the yarn, schmoozed as best I could, and broke down the booth and flew home. I thought about going this year, but decided it wasn’t really worth it financially (cost of going vs. income from being there) and besides I had a lot of stuff to do that seems more important. Going away for three days always sets me back a week.

The biggest disappointment in not going to TNNA was missing the cocktail party that Vogue Knitting was throwing for their 25th anniversary. It’s hard to believe it is 25 years since VK made its most recent appearance. (Back in the early part of the 1900's, Vogue Knitting was a very important part of the yarn industry.) When I was in the the trade, I anxiously awaited seeing the photo of our editorial project using our yarns. A good editorial could make or break your season, hard to believe now. There was always wrangling for position, wining and dining and then some whining with the editors about who got the best editorial of the season and why it wasn't our company. All the stuff, as a knitter, you would never think of. Believe me, it was, and still is, rampant. I just don’t get involved. Give me a chance to show my designing stuff on those pages and I am happy.

This said, I was really thrilled to pick up this book Vogue Knitting: 25 Years of Articles, Techniques, and Expert Advice. What I have always treasured about Vogue Knitting is the quality of the articles, the interviews with knitters I'd like to know and the writing about knitting techniques. As a designer and a past student of anthropology and history, I like to find out information from behind the scenes – what makes people tick… how old traditions began…. On an on. Just give me a good history, human interest, or technique article about knitting and I’m a happy girl. That must be why the stack of magazines persists on my book shelves – I think I have every “new” issue.

But now, I’ve got “the best of” book of techinques and articles. Thanks girls – love it. And of course, I am also glad to be included in the interview pages with lots of women (and a few men) I respect including Deborah Newton, Elizabeth Zimmerman, Norah Gaughan, the list goes on and on....

Here’s to 25 more wonderful, knitterly, stylish, Vogue-ish years.

Who?

The other day, I was rushing off in the middle of the day to go with Julia and her class on their nature field trip. Something flew in front of me. I thought it was a wild turkey. I backed up the car and in a tree perched rather low, I saw this owl.

Once again, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Baby raccoons and now an owl all in two days. I had my camera and snapped. He flew into the woods deeper and I zoomed and snapped again. We sat there staring at each other and then I remembered the field trip. Late again.


After the long winter, it’s amazing how much wildlife we are seeing. Everyone is out and about, including the humans.

Does anyone know what kind of owl he is? I think he may be a spotted owl according to this owl website. I hope I see him/her again. What luck.