Crazy for Ewe

Happy first day of summer.  As I write this, it is 9 pm, and it is still just barely light.   Days like this get away from me, as I have no natural indication that dinner time is approaching, and I’d better get on with it.  Caught up in my knitting, or doing the newsletter, or whatever, I suddenly look up and find that it’s nearly 7:30.  And it’s still hot outside, but I am still knitting.  

Some knitters only knit in the winter time - they don’t even con

It’s the same with knitting.  Whether we’re just learning to make a knit stitch, or we’re struggling with getting the seaming right - it can be confusing.  Sometimes it takes several times to really get it, and that’s okay.  I am happy to show you as many times as you need.  That’s how I want to learn myself, so that’s how I teach. 

There are no stupid questions.  If you have that question, it’s more than likely at least one other person has the same question. That being said, in a group with a wide mix of skill levels, it can be hard to ask a question that might seem really basic. By the same token, more advanced knitters might not ask a complicated

Last Tuesday my son, Colton, was scheduled to come home from college. I called him Monday, just to chat, and see what he planned to do with all the random things that wouldn’t fit into his suitcase.  Pillows, bedding, blah blah blah.  I told him to go ahead and check in since it was an early flight -- 5:45 am.  He said he hadn’t gotten an email from the airlines.  I’d bought the ticket two weeks ago--or so I thought. Because, you know, that is a thing I would do - be halfway through the checkout process and get distracted by something and forget to complete the transaction.  With my heart in my throat I went into Bill’s office.

"We might have a problem," I said. "Can you please check the credit card transactions for something from American Airlines?"

My shoulders relaxed and I started breathing again when he confirmed, yes, indeed, a charge to American Airlines on the 13th.  Colton finally found the email, checked in, and it was all good.

I hadn’t officially opened my new little store, but it was hot, and I had cracked the front door hoping to coax in a little fresh air. Empty cubbies lined the walls. The floor was covered with bags and boxes of yarn that refused to sit nicely on the shelves.  I was busy wrangling skeins into submission when I heard an excited voice ask, “Is that yarn in there?”

It was Duffy, one of our very first customers. I would come to know Duffy for her charming euphemism, such as loving hands at home for the appearance of those unfortunate things many people envision when they think of knitting. 

I was all set to talk about linen today, but I'm going to talk about it in the podcast, so watch that Wednesday night. What I really want to talk about today is a mastery.

Let me back up a minute. Sunday night, my son Johnny put a beautiful platter of steak on the table. Slices of perfectly medium rare steak nestled in a bed of arugula with charred corn, red onion, and bacon. It was a sight to behold, and I told him so; "It's no big deal," he said, "I have a system now, and I can nail it every time."

I remember when that wasn't the case. HIs first few steaks were a little more done than he and I would have liked, but they were pretty good. The next few

It was a little over a year ago that I wrote a blog post about a new normal. Things were looking pretty bleak -- all I could think about was how much I wanted everything to go back to normal. I just wanted to be open and get back to in-person classes and gatherings around the magic table. 

Now, finally, things are getting back to normal as we get our vaccines and the governor lifts restrictions bit by bit. It's just about back to normal, and I guess we can say goodbye to all these Live virtual events and zoom classes and all that mishmash, right?  

Wait.  As strange as it may sound, I've gotten used to the Live video podcast.  Sure, I still have a slight wave of nausea everytime that red light says "YOU'RE

Last week in the Facebook group, a lovely new knitter posted about the trouble she was having working her Moss Cardigan. 

…how do others find the time for knitting the sweaters? I feel like this is not a project to just pick up and set down (probably a result of it being my first sweater). On one row I had 8 interruptions by my family.

Oh my sweet knitter. Your frustration comes through loud and clear, and trust

“I’m afraid it won’t fit”.  When I asked you to tell me your biggest fear when it comes to making a sweater, that’s what you told me.  Not at all surprising.  We are  all  afraid that our sweaters won’t fit.  Spending the time, money, and effort going on choosing the garments, buying the yarn, and making the garment, only to have it not fit -- I don’t think there’s a more disheartening moment.  

There are lots of reasons a sweater might not fit, in order of least likely to most likely.

Lovely Regina was in the shop a bit ago. Enamored with the No Plain Jane cardigan another customer had knit, she wanted to knit the same garment.  However, she wanted to do it in a different yarn.  She looked at the gauge and saw that it was 13 stitches over 4”, so she began looking in the bulky section and fell in love with Malabrigo Mecha.  Who wouldn’t, right?  With a skein of Mecha in one hand and a skein of Wooladdicts Air in the other, she walked up to me and said, “I don’t get it. You told me these yarns were both bulky.  They both have 135 yards per skein.  But the Air is 50g, and the Malabrigo is 100g.”  I love my engineer customers because they notice these things, and ask about them.  Everything has to make sense, which is so important in knitting.  

You see, Wooladdicts Air is a blown yarn, which means that it’s constructed by

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