Trip Finale Plus

Hi Knitters,
Are you up for one last look at our summer trip? I hope so. My brother lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area so we ended our trip at his house, which is beautiful by the way. He lives on a quiet street in a big house so it felt wonderful after the crowded streets and hotels. We mainly hung out and visited with our families but we did make one journey downtown to see the monuments. On the way to the monuments we walked by the house where Abe Lincoln died and the theater where he was shot was right across the street. I hadn't seen that before and it really made you stop and think about that history from so long ago. It is hard to imagine the times during that period of history. Everything was so small in size, the buildings I mean, but the Lincoln monument is massively impressive when you are up close.
It is a sight to behold.
The Vietnam Memorial Wall is by far the most moving monument to me. I don't know what it is about that wall that brings me to tears, it surely isn't the fanciest or prettiest. As you are walking it is like the world gets really quiet the farther down the wall you go, silence surrounds you. Seeing the staggering list of names of the people who died hits you like a ton of bricks but it is the trinkets and notes that are left by loved ones that gets me every time. You see how personal and current is still remains. On the bottom of one list of names there was a simple little note left in the gutter. Scribbled on that scrap of paper it just said, "I love you." I get so sad just thinking about it.
It was a perfect day as the sky was overcast with only one brief and light shower along the way. The temp and humidity were not high and the crowds were surprisingly small. It is a memorable journey and a somber journey at times as you think about all of the people who have paid so much for our country.
On a lighter note, on the way to the monuments we went to Georgetown where I ran across this little gem of a yarn shop, Stitch DC. They have three locations in the D.C. area. What a cute little shop to stumble upon.
The young woman working was helpful and friendly and cute. It is a wonderful little space with some fun yarns. It seemed they had a lot of Karabella, Debbie Bliss and O Wool.
I especially like seeing this on the shelf when I walked in. That makes you feel good:)
I bought this scrumptious and huge skein of Mary's Little Lamb Light Worsted in True Blue. It has 450 yards and is by Farmhouse Yarns. I love the gentle color and I am planning on making some sort of cabled scarf out of it eventually. I ran across this array of free cabled scarf patterns (scroll down) you may want to check out. What a plethora of patterns from this wonderful designer.

Here are a couple more cool links I have been thinking about. I am making that sweater (from the first link) and I think I have the yarn in my stash for it, more later. If you have the magazine then you will know what I am talking about when I say that passed that sweater right by at first. Then when I saw the photos from the designers blog, I can't get it out of my head. What a fantastic creation. The other link is another great new resource you may want to visit. There are some interesting patterns here.
I know this is getting long but I want to finish by sharing my daughter's altered book. She had so much fun with this project. Here are some of the pages:
Yummy.
This page features glitter and a working zipper. When you open the zipper you see she wrote, "Happy Days," and glued two little buttons on either side, very cheerful.
I love this because you can make the horse move by pulling on the sucker stick on the side. It's an action feature.
Cheeky monkey!
You have to have a blue bird, sun with a smiley face and a big ol' tree, always.
This book is now featured on display in our living room for all to see.

Have a super weekend, Knitters. I hope it's a good one.
best, susie

New York Minute

Hi Knitters,
It seemed like a minute anyway. The trio above was the highlight of my short time in New York. I got to see my beloved editor, Trent Duffy, at Artisan Books for the first time in person. I know I have said this before but it is strange to work with someone for almost 2 years and never meet them in person or even know what they look like for that matter. Well, it was a fun meeting. I met with Trent first and he is so warm, friendly and welcoming. We chatted in his office for a bit then he took me around the office and introduced me to the Artisan staff, a few I had met before. Everyone asked me if I was done with my new book yet and I had to keep saying not quite. Oh well.

The office is really nice, they recently moved to this current building. It was great meeting Trent face to face. Trent is the kind of editor any author dreams of working with. He treats me in an incredibly kind way. He's very respectful and sweet and the best thing is he respects my knitting. I love that so much. Every day he jumps from historical topics and authors, to dealing with the top chefs, artists and photographers in the world, celebrities and news people of all sorts, all the way to me and my toy and baby knitting. I feel like he sincerely includes me and my chubby bunny-like projects right in the same category as his other authors and that is truly wonderful. It actually makes me tear up a bit to think about my good fortune in Trent. I feel pretty lucky about the whole thing. He likes things to be done right and well and it shows in the books Artisan publishes. Plus he's a nice looking man in person to boot!

That's Danielle Costa in the middle. Do you remember me talking about her awhile ago. She was my publicist for Itty-Bitty Hats. She set up my first book tour and led me by the hand while I experienced being an author for the first time. What a job she did, the girl was 25 years old at the time and she literally filled me with her confidence. I loved working with Danielle and I actually cried after I hung up the phone when she told me she was switching jobs at Artisan. She is in the sales department now and is doing a fantastic job. I really feel like I owe Danielle a ton of gratitude. She has been so supportive and caring. I can't tell you enough about the type of support she offered along the way and in every situation. I even called her one night before my first tour stop in Minneapolis where I had several tv appearances scheduled. I asked her the silliest question about what I should wear. I called her on her cell phone so I asked where she was at the moment. I could have died, here she was at the publisher, Ann Bramson's apartment for an after-work gathering and there I am calling about which skirt to wear. She couldn't have been any kinder. I miss Danielle but I still get to see her every once in awhile which is good. We will always be friends, I hope.

Lastly, you all know the wonder-publicist Jaime on the right. She is my current book publicist at Artisan and the brains and organizer behind the current Itty-Bitty Nursery trunk show tour. Well, she continues to be a bright light in my life. Jaime has a lot going on right now and I hope and pray that I get to continue to work with her. Jaime's in love and her love just happened to get in Harvard Law School. Guess who's moving to Boston? I would do the same thing. I am hoping it works out that she gets to do the publicity for my next book in a freelance type of way, that is my dream. It could really work out that way. Maybe we'll even get to go to TNNA together again. Jaime is a knitter and we just have a good time together. I am sure all of her author's say that but it is true. I love Jaime. She has done a wonderful job and she has a lot left to do in the world. I can't wait to see what happens next with her. The world is Jaime's oyster.

These three took me to lunch just across the way from their office at a place called The Blue Ribbon. It was a wonderful leisurely lunch. I loved chatting with them, they are a funny, entertaining group. I had the most delicious salad too, one of the best ever in fact. I had looked forward to this lunch for a long time and it was better than I had ever imagined. I smile when I think about it. Gorgeous, all of them.
Here I am outside the door of Artisan with my daughter. I was surprised by her height or my lack of, rather. I wish I was tall like that. My family walked me to the door and then when I went in to push the elevator button I looked back and they were all in the doorway waving at me. It was a pretty funny sight. They got to meet Jaime, Danielle and Trent after lunch. That was a good moment. My life is so different than their lives it is fun to see the two worlds collide.
I Spy: my head and my daughter's pony tail.
My sons love The Office. Here is a wall of Dwight bobble-heads on display at the NBC studio store. We came home with a Michael and a Dwight bobble-head. I like that show, too, but it makes me so uncomfortable sometimes that I can't watch.
We spent a ton of time at FAO Schwartz. That was fun. What can I say about the tootsie pop photo? Teenage boys are just funny characters.
All of the kids tried the massive piano keys from the movie Big. You can get one for your house for only $250,000.
We went to Central Park and climbed humongous rocks. We went up and down a lot. There are climbing rocks everywhere you turn.
We called Jaime from the park for a dinner recommendation and we ended up here:
The Carnegie Deli. Here is my matzoh ball soup with noodles. Have you ever?
Here is my son's sandwich called, "Bacon Whoopee." I only cringed a little when he ordered it, pretty funny. They ate half at dinner, took the other half in a doggy bag and polished it off while watching the Olympics later that night.
We went to Battery Park to view the Statue of Liberty.
She looked beautiful as ever.
best, susie
p.s. We stayed at the best hotel in Secaucus, NJ. It is an Embassy Suites, the room rates were very reasonable and it was a 15 minute bus ride to Times Square. The bus stop was right out of our door, $3 a piece for a ride. The best part was each morning they had a huge complimentary made-to-order breakfast spread. For a family of 6 this was ideal and saved us a lot of time and money. The hotel was clean with a friendly, helpful staff. I highly recommend this spot if you are headed out that way.

Boston Times and Stuff

Hi Knitters,
First I'd like to share with you something straight from my fridge...
and my kitchen table...
directly to the pages of....
Parents magazine, September 2008 issue!

I found this in my pile of mail yesterday. The wonderful Amanda Kingloff, the lifestyle editor at Parents magazine, is so kind to remember to send me issues that have my stuff in the pages. Otherwise I would probably forget and it is nice to see the results in the end. In every issue of Parents they have a quick one page craft for kids called Make It! Many months ago I sent Amanda a few of these flower magnets I had made using bottle caps as the base of the flower. They loved them and with a few modifications made for more accessible materials here is how it turned out:
This is such a quick, cute little craft project that is good for any age group young to old. In the project that made the pages I used felt and pom-poms from the craft store. They look great but I have to tell you that the original samples I made were a little different (seen in the top three pictures) and you, as fiber people, might enjoy the materials I used. I had some wool felt ovals and some felted balls in my stash that I put to use. The flowers made in the felt were gorgeous and if you have any of these items around this is a great use. A fun and easy project for kids and adults is always good.
Well, we sure did a ton of this last week. We started out the week in Boston. I love this city, so historical and interesting. We walked all over, up and down, side to side. We hit just about every Boston spot you could think of in our short stop over.
My kids took most of the photos from our trip and it is fun to see what they see through the camera. It is always creative and funny at times. We really enjoyed Newbury Street, of course. One of the spots my girls loved was Lush. This store is a franchise but we don't have one in Madison yet. They have all of this handmade soap in all different forms and smells. We tried everything in the store and we even had a hand treatment. The staff was so much fun and there was even a young woman working who is from Chicago and her family was in Madison at that time. She liked that we were from Madison, it was cute.
This beautiful young woman was really fun. She had that water pouring into buckets and bowls and we sampled to our hearts content. I asked if I could take a picture of her hair for my blog. I think she thought I was a bit nutty but what's new? She had taken roving and braided it into her hair and then left long ends to wind up in that spectacular roving bun. If I were twenty I would do that. Anyway, stop in to the Lush shop if you get a chance.

We also went to Newbury Yarns where the woman working in the tiny upstairs shop was so helpful and friendly. She made our visit incredibly pleasant. I bought a few fun items here that I'll share at some point including some needles that look like candy on the ends (my daughter picked those out).
We ended up at Sugar Heaven for some treats. It turned out to be an expensive candy stop much to my husband's chagrin. That's the whole crew taking a sugar break.
It was beautiful in Boston, what a great walking city. The eating was fun, too. You can't miss.

Change of subject, you know the silk ribbon I used for this cover project? A friendly reader sent me the link to this ribbon. I get so many emails about where to get this exact ribbon and now I know. Thank you, Allison.

Okay, more later. Oh, and Robbie aka washmom responded yesterday to the giveaway so she is the official winner for sure. Congrats again.

I am already gathering my next giveaway. It may be smaller but it will be just as good. I have no idea when I will do the next one, it will be when the feeling strikes. Those are pretty fun.

Have a great Tuesday, Knitters.
best, susie

Hey, You Won!

Hi Knitters,
I returned from my holiday last night so early this morning I charged up the random number generator to come up with the winning post. Included in the total number were 13 email entries, I just can't exclude anybody who bothers to write me to enter. If you emailed me don't worry, you really were entered in the giveaway.

So here it goes, this is the winning post:

washmom said...

I just finished knitting the frog pacifier holder to send to my grandbaby in South Africa. It is adorable! I own your two Itty books and have enjoyed them so much. Thanks for your talent, and I hope I win those goodies! What a treat! Robbie(:

August 08, 2008

Yay to washmom!! Now washmom, your job is to email me your mailing address within the next three days. My email address is on the sidebar, just click on it. If I don't hear from you by noon, central time, Wednesday, Aug. 20th I will pick a new winner. Congratulations.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to enter and had such positive friendly things to say. You are all so good and true and I appreciate you.
Well, you may have noticed that I was gone for awhile. We went on a road trip out east starting in Boston, then NYC, then Washington D.C. I have lots of fun stuff to share from the trip but today I am just going to show you some of the knitting I worked on while riding in the car, bus rides and train travel.

So I finished the pom-pom peds I started a short while ago. I used my pom tree (see sidebar to order one) to make the pom-poms this morning. I had to add that finishing touch. Love them and they are made out of Nature's Palette. This is good, vibrant yarn that I will definitely use again.
You have to add the poms on the back or they aren't quite right. Now I will do the reverse pair with the main part in the yellow. What a great, quick project.
I finished the Anne scarf in Lorna's Laces worsted weight. I can't get enough of this scarf because it is beautiful, quick (you could finish one in an evening if you tried) and it takes only one skein of worsted weight yarn, under 200 yards. You can't get any better than that.
Right at the last long hours of our car ride last night I pulled out this ball of Opal sock yarn to start a ribbed sock. I am crazy for these stripes. I especially love how they threw in the gray stripe in the midst of the brights, it adds. I haven't knit with Opal before and I have to say I have a thing for a good manufactured sock yarn like Opal, Regia or Trekking. They have that crunchier wool feeling that I love. They soften up with washing and wearing, of course.
Last but not least, I lugged along a big bag of Julia. These rectangles are for a book project I am working on and what a perfect project for car knitting. After completing ten 5 by 7 inch rectangles I felt pretty good. Originally I was going to do a felted toy in Julia but this project isn't going to be felted. I may still add another felted Julia toy project if I have time. You can see the beauty of this yarn just by looking at the deep, saturated colors and the softness and stitch definition it provides. It is glorious yarn and in my head this is going to be a spectacular project. I'll try my hardest to bring it to life.

I'll be back with more details about my trip and my yarn stops along the way. It was a good, fun vacation to say the least. Stay tuned....

Have a relaxing Sunday, Knitters. I missed you.
best, susie
p.s. The itty-bitty nursery trunk show tour is now here:

Knitting Sisters, LC

Kat England

1915 Pocahontas Trail

Williamsburg, VA 23185

info@knittingsisters.com

757.258.5005

Arrive: August 7

Depart: August 19

Be sure to stop by if you are in the area and if not check out their site, it is pretty cool. This looks like a fun shop.

Come and Get It Part 2 (giveaway!)

Hi Knitters,
Here it is, another giant giveaway. See all of that cleaning pays off for you and me. Here is a quick list of the items I am including in this gift-o-rama package:
1. A Sew Bendy bag that Melissa sent to me as a prototype sample. It is a little different design with a tapered top and it doesn't have the interfacing. It is a cute little gem of a bag. I keep giving my SewBendy bags away to people so it looks like I will just have to order some more:)

2. My first Apple Cozy I knitted awhile ago. You can use it to hold your yarn cakes, too.

3. 7 skeins of Tahki Cotton Classic in rainbow colors. I was thinking about the Rainbow Marley Hat from Itty-Bitty Hats, you could make many, many hats with this bunch of yarn. You can use it for whatever you'd like, maybe even some granny squares.

4. A handmade wool pincushion adorned with my knitted embellishments. This is a beauty with a mohair flower and Noro squiggles on the corners, a beautiful button and several lovely beads.

5. A set of carrots that were made for Itty-Bitty Nursery. Then I knitted another set in a different shade of orange for photography. These are just as good and yummy made out of cotton chenille.

6. A pair of Blah-Blah knit booties, I guess they are little tigers. Cute, cute.

7. The tiny skeins of yarn on the left are handfuls of Koigu I was given at TNNA. The tiny skeins on the right are the luscious O-Wool from TNNA as well. Gorgeous and fun, all of it.
Carrots for you.
Yummy yarn for you.
Lovely bag and cozy for you.
I will stuff it all in this wonderful tweed bag from In the Bag and send it off your way. I love this bag, it has two pockets and a wonderful natural linen lining and the wooden handles can't be beat. It is absolutely like new, rarely used by me, maybe once or twice.
Here's what you need to do to enter and be the winner of this jackpot:

Send me a comment and say hi. That's it. (Please enter one time only and please comment instead of emailing me.) Again like last time, I will be shipping to US and Canada mailing addresses only due to shipping expenses.

Just so you know I will be in and out much of the upcoming week. If you don't see your comment posted right away it is just because I haven't gotten to posting it yet. Don't worry, I will be checking in sporadically to post the the entries. They will all be posted, I promise.

I will be keeping the comments open right up until I pick a random number with the random number generator. I will be selecting one winner sometime on the weekend of August 16th. At that time I will post the winning comment and then that person will need to email me with their mailing address. If the winner doesn't contact me within three days I will select a new winner.

Go to it, Knitters. You always make my day and I'd like to make the day for one of you.
best, susie