More about Stitches + Take a Look.....

On Saturday during a booksigning at Stitches East my phone rang. I excused myself to pick it up - my phone never rings so it had to be something important.

The voice: "Hi Kristin. It's Debbie."

Me: "Oh, Hi Debbie," I said non-chalantly. Meanwhile it my little old head I'm saying "Oh my god, it's Debbie Macomber calling me! OMG, OMG, OMG!"

Debbie wanted to meet me and I wanted to meet her. We made a plan to meet at 3 p.m. and let me tell you, this girl who is ALWAYS late was 5 minutes early! I waited the littlest bit and then met up with Debbie and her lovely assistant Renata. I thought we were going to have some coffee but they hadn't yet eaten lunch. We whooshed off to the very nice hotel restaurant to meet up with Christina Skye.

Oh geez - I sat there all flummoxed and tongue-tied, not really knowing what to talk about. You know, when you meet someone new and you are just getting to know them. Too bad I didn't order myself a glass of wine. After a few awkward minutes we settled in. I was fascinated to hear about the romance novel business. It's a far cry from writing knitting books, let's just say. Debbie has over 100 books in print! Christina has over 30. They are both on the NYT Bestseller list. Debbie has an assistant and staff. (wow, I certainly would love that, I think. Here's the story about my staff). She has a writing office on the third floor of a building that also houses her yarn store - A Good Yarn Shop - and her staff.

But here's the thing.... these women were incredibly nice and mostly just wanted to talk about knitting. They were there like all the rest of us at Stitches - passionate about their craft, learning about knitting techniques and generally just loving yarn. (Well, I guess they really aren't exactly like the rest of us - they are writing books for romance novel publishers - It's a really big business!) Debbie was there to promote her new line of yarn which she has done with Universal Yarns. It is lovely - I had a peek at it in the Universal booth and Janet from The WoolPack told me how well Debbie's sock yarn Petals (that has just a touch of angora in it) is doing for her. (She says it is great for baby projects.)

And then Julia arrived - my friends who she was hanging out with had to leave and so she joined us. She ordered a chocolate confection. I was a bit nervous about having my 12 year old daughter joining in but the women were so incredibly gracious. Julia asked Debbie so many great questions. She was especially interested to learn about how Debbie's books are turned into movies - the process, the input Debbie has, who starred in them and more. Julia had a great time.

And then yesterday a package arrived addressed to Julia. In it were two of Debbie's first books - The Matchmaker and Fairy Tale Weddings. How sweet was that? Julia is thrilled. Somehow we're going to have to see if we can watch the new Debbie Macomber movie "Call Me Mrs. Miracle." It's coming up November 27. And look for the upcoming (April 2011) new book called "The Knitting Diaries" which is co-authored by Debbie, Christina and another author friend of theirs Susan Mallery. More knitting in books - it is sure to bring in more knitters into the fold - let's hope!

Thank you Debbie, Christina, and Renata for being charming lunch dates and giving me a look into your world. It sure was fun to meet you!

Here are some things for you to look at on the web this weekend...
Debbie Macomber has a Knitting Club on-line here.
Christina Skye has a knitting page here on her website.
Look at this lovely new self-published book.
And this self-published magazine.
And the cover in particular of this new sock book.

Good weekend everyone. There will be a great contest next week. Come back to see what I've got for you now!