Yarn River … wider than a mile…
I’m wading through the huge plastic buckets of Classic Elite yarn (I keep yarn from each company in it’s own separate giganto-snap lid container – a different one for summer and winter yarns if necessary) and I’m at the point of designing an Aran Mae West to keep my head above the fibrous foam.

Yesterday was sketch day. sI came up with quite a few nice ideas, which will inevitably change as I swatch and reconsider them. Here’s a little candid shot of my studio where I do the swatching. Very messy, and I’m amazed my husband puts up with it for the several weeks a month when the yarn takes over. I rely heavily on the J. Jill catalog for my model poses (I LOVE that catalog – and LOVE that they carry most of their shoes up to size 11!)

I’m also feeling rather 1940’s about this round of designs, so I’ll spend a little time with my costume history stuff on wartime and post war fashions. I like to toss a little history in to keep it interesting. Classic Elite hasn’t take a design of mine for a while, but getting the yarn is very inspiring, and quite often the stuff I work up for them is taken by an editorial venue when resubmitted.

It’s wet and steamy today – I knew it would be a lazy day when I was awakened by our doorbell at 8:00 (the kids are supposed to catch the bus at 8:12) and rushed downstairs to throw open the door and terrify my neighbor who was dropping off her daughter to walk to the bus with Han & Max. Needless to say, I drove the kids to school.

Postcards from the selvedge edge
I took every suggestion very seriously, and here is the final draft of the postcard! I quite like it, and your input made it much nicer than I’d already envisioned.

I am so divided about the travel stuff. On the one hand I really love it, purely, selfishly, LOVE being in my car and on the road, a diet coke in the cupholder and a book on tape in the CD player with hundreds of miles of road to eat up. My next life will be as a long haul trucker. And I love the teaching – I adore meeting people, seeing so many yarn shops, spending time with students and talking about knitting styles, etc.

I love seeing different parts of the country – and the best way to see ANYplace is to work there, albeit briefly, in any capacity. So when I arrive in a town and work there for a day as a knitting teacher, I feel that I get a better feeling about it than if I’d just visit as a tourist. I’m probably kidding myself, but there it is.

I don’t like the exhaustion of a long trip – a week away usually takes me about 2 weeks to fully recover at home. I hate leaving the kids and Gerry and I REALLY hate leaving Gerry with his hands full of two wild redheads. I’ve definitely noticed a change from his sanguine, “We’ll be FINE, honey!” of a year ago to his, “We’ll be okay – when are you coming home..?” of today. I’m home this weekend, but the next two weekends after that I’ll be teaching in CT an Maryland. I knew there’d been a huge change in Gerry’s outlook on this when I idly mentioned, “Gee, I’d love to go to TNNA this weekend…” and he didn’t jump in with, “Go ahead, honey, I’ve got the kids!” (which I wouldn’t do to him, anyway. But a year ago he would have volunteered. Of course, a year ago he didn’t have a steady job with insane 3:30 am hours!)

Teach Away
I feel that if I put in my dues now – the many yarn shop teaching gigs, lots of ‘show ups’ at places, etc., it helps me establish a base of folks who’d like to hear me teach and speak again. So the travel is important now. I’m hopeful that by the time the kids are older I’ll be able to take longer trips – perhaps foreign trips – with our without them.

Is it my breath? Something I said?
Last year my gig at Rhinebeck went really well, but I’m having a devil of a time getting hold of them for this year. The email I have bounced, the phone number I have has a full message box, and they still have 2004 classes listed. I’d love to teach there again, I know they’ve hired Teva (a tie in with her book release) to teach a class. If any of you would like to contact Rhinebeck to let them know you’d like me to teach there, please feel free to do so! My classe were full last year (except for the last one, those darned last classes are always a little empty…) and the students seemed to have a good time.

I’ve sent out about 100 post cards so far to selected yarn shops in the Boston Area, Chicago Area and FL/GA/AL area. I’ll be in Boston in late October and would love to set up several other teaching dates while I’m there. In early December I’ll be in southern Wisconsin at the Lake Delavan Resort for a midwest knitting retreat, so as long as I’m out there why not set up some teaching dates in Chi and Southern Wisconsin, n’est ce pas? My goal is to get 2 weekends every month booked by the end of the year, and I’m doing pretty well along those lines. The next step is to find a babysitter who can do an overnight every couple of weeks while I’m gone. Luckily, we live right near a university…

I’m thinking it would be good to be in the South in the early Spring – and I have a standing invitation from the amazing Mercedes of Knit Nouveau in Helena, AL – so why not set up more shop classes while I’m down south (y’all…)

I haven’t started contacting knitting guilds, but if you know of one that would like to sponsor me for a workshop or some classes, let me know and I’ll try to combine it with lots of yarn shop classes to reduce the travel & accomodation fees for everyone!