Home Sweet Home

I am back after a self-imposed, month-long blog silence. It has been a whirlwind and very productive on so many other horizons. Now I am gearing up for a long awaited and well deserved respite in Seattle with my family.

I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show in London where I met with Emma Kennedy, the editor of Knitting magazine. We discussed two features she had commissioned a week before and gave me another. So needless to say, I have been working under deadline for three stories and I am thrilled to be paid to write about something I love. The show itself  was also very exciting. I got a lot of new ideas for story pitches and for my book. I also got to speak with prolific author and designer Nicky Epstein.

London wasn't all professional success and shoulder-rubbing with knitting icons. No, I also spent a day going to the US Embassy to apply for an emergency passport. Then there was my walking excursion from Bloomsbury to South Kensington to visit the textile galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

I also spent a good 12 days building a website on a citizen journalism site as an application for a craft blogging position. I haven't heard anything back from the judges, but I am not assuming anything. Fingers crossed something comes out of it. And if not, there are more opportunities to be had elsewhere.

On the knitting front, I have also accomplished quite a bit. Aimee, the beautiful Kim Hargreaves pattern, has yielded a stunning plum snood in Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk. I knit it in the round on a tip from a fellow Raveler and the decreases make a barely noticeable seam up both sides.

The 'snood' was a completely foreign concept to me, but leave it to British fashonistas to explain such things to us fashionably challenged Yanks. Apparently, its modern incarnation is my Aimee, but this link suggests the snood is actually a glorified hairnet. Regardless, it is so yummy and soft; it is the perfect holiday knit and I will be sporting it on Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Feast your eyes!




I also finished Minty Fresh's Bainbridge Scarf which is quite a feat since I have frogged and restarted three times. The first time, I messed it up and couldn't bear it. The second time I nearly finished it, but then decided that tension squares and gauge checks aren't as bad as they seem because this project turned out a lot smaller than it seemed it should have. So I frogged again, wound the yarn around the back of a chair and let it stretch out and straighten. I took it back up 10 days ago and added 50% to the amount of stitches to be cast on. I think it will make a lovely Holiday gift, don't you?

I can hardly wait to go home to Seattle for the month. It is something I have been looking forward to for nearly a year and something I haven't been able to do since March. Hopefully I will have some finished objects to share with you from there. Lord knows I have packed enough projects!

Knit well and knit often!