Let's Start At the Very Beginning...

...a very good place to start.

Hi Knitters,
Actually, I am starting at the very end. I ended up my Minnesota visit at Needlework Unlimited which is one of my favorite places to be. I was graciously welcomed and that shop is something else, it is huge and brimming with every great yarn you could ever want. Karen Rumpza is a savvy owner with her inventory. The knitters there were wonderful and plentiful. There was a steady stream of happy faces that included a brand new baby named Thora (and proud mom and grandma, too), and the lovely Lesli (check out the fantastic blog she just started!) and her beautiful daughter, Ella, kept me company for quite some time. Ella, who is seven, is an enthusiastic knitter to say the least, and she had the cutest felted bag that she knitted herself, so fun to see. Anyway, I went through stacks of books, both hats and nursery kind, and it was a relaxing and pleasant stop, thoroughly enjoyable. I would go back there anytime.


The photographer for the book, Liz Banfield, lives in Minneapolis so I am always telling people that all of those great babies are from Minnesota. I have to mention that I met the mom of the gorgeous little girl who modelled the tea set in the book. Her name is Piper and she has a great story. Right before these photos were taken, maybe a week before, she was adopted from China! The mom wasn't sure how she would react to being a model, but she was perfect. Liz Banfield knew her from the neighborhood. It was great to meet her and hear about Piper in person. Piper's mom is pretty cute herself!


The other person I met was baby Chloe's aunt who showed up at Needlework. Chloe is in three pictures in the book. She is in the stroller wearing the circles stroller jacket. She has the best cheeks I have ever seen! Chloe is also wearing the rosebud hat next to the fruit loops bag. Her family is so excited about her being in the book. It was touching to see how proud her aunt is of her niece. I signed a book for Chloe and thanked her for being a model in my book. These kinds of meetings make everything worth it to me, pure and simple.
Saturday morning I went to the Midwest Booksellers Convention. Wow, was that an interesting look into the book selling market. Independent bookstore owners came through in large numbers and they get free books and other stuff from the hundreds of publishers who set up booths. It is like Christmas and everything is free. I set up this little table of goodies at the Workman booth. It attracted a lot of attention because of the knitted samples, people love a good knitted cupcake. I signed and gave away 60 copies of itty bitty nursery in less than an hour. I met quite a few knitters/bookstore owners as well. Many of these little book shops have a knitting shop right nearby. That was good fun.

The best part of of the convention was meeting my beloved Danielle face to face. In this day and age you can work with someone on a daily basis for months and never meet them in person. Isn't that kind of strange? It is to me, I like to know what someone looks like and I have been known to make people describe themselves over the phone to me. Sorry about that.

Danielle was my publicist for itty bitty hats and she is amazing. She is a jack of all trades in every sense of the word. She can literally do anything and everything and manage any crisis in a matter of moments. She switched jobs at Workman and is now in sales and marketing. Workman is lucky to have her. Plus she is just so darn fun. We went out to dinner on Friday night (actually, I just remembered it was my birthday that night) at a great restaurant on Nicollet Mall called the Newsroom. The food was delicious and we ate a ton. She looked so cute and New York sassy and I looked, well, Midwestern mom. That is making me laugh. What can you do? I am what I am. Danielle is a knockout and a kind, thoughtful, hardworking young woman. I love her to the core and I am lucky to have the opportunity to work with her and to spend time with her. Thanks Danielle!

Oh yeah, I did a taping for KARE 11, the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis, which will be shown on Tuesday, Oct. 9th on the Showcase Minnesota show. If you're in the area and are able to see that spot, I would love to hear how it went. One funny thing is that during the taping my cell phone went off, it was my sister wishing me a happy birthday. We laughed about that later. I thought they would stop the tape so I told Corbin that my phone was going off, but she just kept on going! I got a bit distracted so that should be good for a laugh. Despite that the taping went fine and I hope it looks good. Let me know!

On Thursday I went to The Yarnery in St. Paul. What a great shop! The staff was friendly and warm and they had a wonderful event all set to roll. You can see pictures here. I forgot to get my camera out. I met the lovely Eva who is a great itty bitty knitter. She was such fun to chat with. The beautiful Sylvia was there with her bear and I helped her figure out the feet construction. Her bear was so cute and she is so excited to be expecting her first grandchild soon. I want to hear all about that, Sylvia. Also, the beautiful baby Will came and hung out for a long while. He was so sweet. I love meeting those babies. The Yarnery just opened an online shop for their store. Check that out for sure and they are selling the patterns for these fantastic felted snowmen with accessories. You will see their ad in the new holiday Interweave Knits. That is one cute pattern! I loved being at this shop so much. What a treat of a night.

Well, one last line of business. I had the pleasure of being featured in the business section of the weekend edition of the Capital Times newspaper here in Madison. You can check out that article here and the reporter Katie Dean did a super job. Thanks, Katie for being thorough and making the effort to come to the Knitting Tree event. I was really impressed. I can't imagine how hard those reporters work and at such a fast pace, incredible.

Wow, can you believe all that? For anyone who made it through this post, thank you! Now I am off to clean my house which you also wouldn't believe.

best, susie