Crazy for Ewe

We’ve been hard at work here at the shop. We had several huge shipments of yarn arrive kind of all at once, and finding just the right place for every skein has been a challenge - it’s not that we don’t have the room, it’s that we want it to look beautiful and be inspiring.  It takes a lot of time, but we’ve been chipping away at it, and it’s finally in a state I’m proud of.  It’s a nice feeling.  

Good things do take time, as any knitter knows. There are lots of steps along the way, and a significant amount of uncertainty that goes with any project.  Uncertainty.  A euphemism for that age old emotion, fear.  Any time we start on a

Knife skills.  One of the first things my mom taught me about cooking.  Well, maybe not the first thing, but somewhere between how to pull the tab on the cake mix bag and how to fold an omelet in the pan without a spatula.  Anyway, her 10” carbon steel Sabatier chef’s knife was jealously guarded lest it be allowed to rust on the counter or inadvertently placed in the dishwasher, a fate from which a carbon steel knife never truly recovers.  She used to say that a good chef’s knife could be used for almost anything – cutting onions, crushing garlic, slicing meats, taking apart a whole chicken.  But even so, she had a raft of other sharp instruments for various cutting tasks – serrated knives for crusty bread, paring

What do you think when you hear the words runway show or fashion week?  For  me it conjures images of outrageous, things no one would ever wear, right?  That’s the point though.  Designers are making a statement with those over-the-top looks.  They’re an indication of trends - bold looks that get tamed for the ready to wear market you see first in high end stores and then in the mass market

I’ve been spending a lot of time researching tools to create my membership site.  I know that I want there to be helpful videos, a library of patterns I know and trust, and lots of other resources I want to share with you. A central piece of the site will be the safe, private forum.

I’ve been researching tools to create this site and it’s been interesting.  People ask questions about the best plug in and its costs (which are high), the integration with existing sites and email, recurring payments, and all the nitty gritty technical stuff that goes into a thing like this.

Reading through the questions and the answers, I am seeing a simple truth: As with so many things, you cannot throw money and technology at a problem and expect to come up with a solution. 

About 20 years ago, I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey. Written in 1989, It wasn’t a new book, even then, but it changed my life I refer to its teachings all the time with my children, my husband, and every aspect of my life. Even my kids have been known to quote its well-worn

Scrolling through my overcrowded inbox today, I saw a message on starting your day well. I expected an admonishment on how I should rise an hour early for one of those perky pre-dawn exercise classes, or take a cold shower, or some other walking-over-hot-coals kind of motivational technique.  Instead, the words were a warm wave that washed over me with validation and relief.

I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot lately.  She died three years ago this week, and that tends to dredge up all the feels. I miss her wisdom.  She understood human nature better than most and was always able to see right to the core of a difficult interpersonal situation.  Even so, she could be one of the world’s most challenging individuals, demonstrating her own maxim  When we are the hardest to love is when we need it the most, but that’s a story for another day.

One thing she always said was When the worst possible thing happens,  it always contains the seeds to salvation.  Somehow it feels a little less sappy than the whole silver lining cliché, because you don’t just break open a bad thing and

We can like two things at once.  Chocolate and vanilla. Red wine and white wine, rice and pasta. We may have a preference and generally choose one over the other, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t see the merits of both, right?  I fall into the chocolate, red wine, and pasta camp, but I can certainly appreciate crème brulee, a nice crisp chardonnay, and a creamy risotto.  Boy, I must be hungry.

It’s the same with sweaters construction.  Bottom up and seamed is my preference, but I can see the appeal of top-down seamless.  Not all top down seamless, but some.  Especially Cocoknits. 

During our V-neck pullover Knitalong, I was helping Mindy block her sweater pieces.  She was kind enough to take these videos in return so that I could share with you some tips about blocking.  I'll try to get those videos posted on YouTube this week.

Lots of folks asked about my steamer, which I purchased after my other one burned up when I left it on.  Since I often turn the steamer on and leave it for a

I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point in my knitting career, I stopped having to look at my hands and my stitches while I knit. People who don't knit are impressed by this skill. "You must be an expert," they say, with misplaced awe. At this point, I would have to say, yeah, I'm probably an expert. Not an expert like Ginni, but still. Anyway, I could knit without looking long before would have considered myself an expert. Knitting without looking is like touch typing, as we learned in high school - that's keyboarding for you milennials...It's just a matter of familiarity and practice, nothing more.

Cooking and knitting have a lot in common – and I don’t just mean that they’ve both literally saved my sanity during these tough times.  They are both constructive, creative outlets that help me focus and create a calm headspace from which I can better view the world. Both cooking and knitting are things we do for ourselves and also for others, enjoying both the process of creation and the joy of sharing the product of our efforts.  There are many other ways cooking is like knitting, perhaps that’s why so many knitters are also really excellent cooks, and people who hate to cook often eschew the fiber arts as well

But there is one really important difference between cooking and knitting that bears mentioning.  I will get to that, but first, let share with you a conversation

Super excited about Tanis Gray's latest book that hits the stands today -- Star Wars Knitting the Galaxy. In honor of this event, here are 11 awesome Star Wars quotes you can use in your knitting conversations.  Make sure you wave your needles around and make a deep and throaty woosh woosh sound

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away” (Scrolling intro of film) – How we describe the time before circular needles, or when we limped along with k1 s1, psso, because there was no SSK, or even those dark pre-Ravelry days when paper patterns were a thing.

“The Force is strong with this one” (Darth Vader in A New Hope) –  what you say when a knitter gets something right away.  Either a new knitter just learning the basics, or a more experienced knitter jumping right into lace or stranded with what seems like special innate knowledge.  What else could it be but The Force?

“You have failed me for the last time” (Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back) -   what we say to our crappy interchangeables that come apart during a