Will Write For Chocolate

Scheherazade, thiiiiiis close

Dear Blog-

Look! Look! I'm almost finished with the Scheherazade Stole! Last night I finished the final chart and began the edging. With a little knitting break before breakfast I now have two of the seven repeats completed for the final edge. Now how cool is that, I ask you? Ok, let's go back up to the top of the page and admire it for a bit... Isn't blocking amazing? The second half looks like something you'd yell at the cat for leaving behind the sofa. But impale it with sharp wires, pin it to a towel while stretching it mercilessly, spritz it with a little water and look what happens. Voila! You have lace!

Of course you know that I think that Melanie Gibbons is the dog's bullocks. And I mean that in the nicest way. (Yes, you, too, Yarn Harlot, I was just crowing over for once not being the last dork to find something or to figure something out. I love you, really. Please call off your goons. They are scaring the neighbors.) Not only does she design gorgeous stoles, but she is just a darned nice person, to boot. When I was working on getting my patterns into downloadable form so that I could sell them online, Melanie was incredibly helpful and patient with my several emails, pointing me in the right direction to payloadz. The LYSO where I work tells me that Melanie has been into the shop and that she is just as sweet in person as you would expect her to be. So it is wonderful to see the MS3 becoming a world-wide phenom, and to find that she has even been interviewed by USA Today! You rock, Melanie! Wave those needles over your head!

And I had promised myself that I wouldn't start any new projects while knitting the MS3, I was going to finish any UFOs first that happened to be languishing about in various baskets next to assorted seating, all over the house. And only then - when those were all finished - would I think about new projects. (Husband, reading this from the next room, shouts a loud, HA!) I mean, what better opportunity? Knit the next clue of MS3 on the weekend, then work during the week on clearing up my UFOs. Maybe, since I already have the jump on Christmas knitting, I should start my next Xmas project! Have one going all the time! Wrap them as I go! Heck, I'd be done before you know it. And then I could sit back and be smug. Or smugger, really. Yes, well, we all know what that particular road to hell is paved with.

The problem, really is my sister. Alright, maybe it started elsewhere. On a day that I was hunting through various craft and bookstores for the much desired Craft magazine. (We'll talk about books later.) Two people in two different shops went wild for my Summer Ivy bag, and I decided, on thinking about it later, that I really needed to start my own etsy store. But I was having a hard time deciding what to put there, thinking first that I would make a whole bunch of creative versions of my sock project bag, and then sell those. And I may do that yet. Yet what I really wanted was to come up with a basic bag pattern that I could do in a million different ways, each one unique and magically delicious. But I didn't yet know what that shape might be. Then it hit me yesterday, exactly what I need: the shape, the design, everything. Now I can't wait to make the first one. I can already see it. But, the problem is my sister. If she hadn't emailed me and asked if I had anything in my etsy store yet, I would still be living a tranquil life where I thought blissful thoughts of Xmas knitting that I would have finished in September, all wrapped and tagged and stored away neatly on a closet shelf, just like Martha Stewart. Note to self: Call lawyers in the morning, cut sister out of will. Leave all yarn to a home for wayward cats.

So now I must rave about new books - Craft magazine, which I love, love, love! I want the two back editions. I want a subscription. I told the above-mentioned sister that say the word 'craft' around me and I picture plant-holders made out of pop-sickle sticks, or those Xmas decorations that were made of hundreds of clear plastic medicine cups with their edges dipped in white glue and then glitter, and pinned all over a big styrofoam ball with a ribbon hanger at the top. Those kind of thoughts can give one hives. This magazine is not about that. At all. Think about artists - both formal and folk - and the craft of making their art. Lots of amazing ideas and how-to's. Then you get the idea.

The new Interweave Felting magazine. Great articles. The Lock Nest hat is pretty scary, but there you go.

And Nicky Epstien, who is one of my Knitting Goddesses, has a new book out - Knitting Never Felt Better. You need this book. Trust me. She is very inspirational, again.

Well, I can't write about knitting and do it at the same time. So off I go...

OH! Take a moment, if you would, and go check out the blog I am doing for the LYS where I teach, Kiwi Knits. Thanks!

Lynda