I wanted to take this first-sentence opportunity to thank everyone who came out to learn from me at Stitches West earlier this month. According to the Stitches organizers, this was the second-biggest event they’ve thrown to date, and my class numbers definitely reflected that. People seemed by and large happy with the quality of the instruction and I made some other good connections. For those who missed me, I’ll be in CA again in May to teach at Vogue Knitting Live Pasadena. I know it’s not right around the corner but it’s closer than any other show I’ll be doing this year.
March is pretty full of workshops — FiberCamp Boston will mark my return to that event after a year away (I was one of the original organizers but the torch has now been passed and it’s doing better than ever); I’ve got a workshop weekend at Must Love Yarn in Shelburne, VT, and then the final weekend I’ll be beginning my crazy 8-class, 2-show weekend at Interweave Yarn Fest in CO. You can check out all my scheduled dates on my calendar.
This month has not seen a lot of visible progress on the book — I have actually made huge progress on the DK lace shawl I mentioned last month, and am only a couple of (very long) rows from finishing. The finishing, however, will probably mean another week or more of work, then we get to see what it’s like when blocked (if I can even find the room to do so). After talking with my step-stepmother (long story) who is fluent in Welsh, I’ve decided to throw caution to the winds and call it Adenydd after all. The pattern will need to come with a quick tutorial on Welsh pronunciation!
I’ve made some reverse progress on the DK intarsia hat I mentioned last month. The colors were just not as contrast-y as I wanted, and despite how excited I’ve been to work with that yarn I just couldn’t continue. I’ve chosen some new yarn from Yarn Carnival and will be swatching it soon. I hope it won’t require a rewrite of the pattern.
Similarly I’ve made some progress both forward and backward on the Atyria redesign. After combing my stash for sportweight, I found some lovely BFL that I’d picked up last year at The Yarn Company in NYC. I got in touch with the maker (The Woolen Rabbit) and expressed my interest in using her yarn for this pattern; she was initially excited but recently I have not been able to get a response via email or phone. Since I’m on a time crunch, I’ve selected a different BFL heavy-fingering from Seven Sisters Arts that I think will do justice to the pattern. I still hope to use The Woolen Rabbit’s yarn in some other project but honestly I just don’t think the colors I chose have the contrast I need for this pattern. Bigger blocks of color would be fine but the 1×1 color changes just get lost with these 2 colors.
In other news, I’ve had a little setback in a major publicity opportunity I had been keeping under wraps, but we’re not out of the woods yet. More on that when I’m allowed to talk about it. I’ve been in talks with some commercial printers on book printing estimates and timetables, and my current target is to go to press in early November so that I have the books in early December. I’d love to go live at Rhinebeck this year but it’s just cutting it too fine. This means I’ll have books ready to ship for Christmas. It also means that I plan to begin taking preorders in September or so. My mailing-list folks will be the first to learn of that, so if you want to be among those early adopters, please feel free to join my mailing list.
Finally, I wanted to do a shout-out to The Knitting Zone, the US distributor for Hiya Hiya needles. As you may or may not know, I have 3 interchangeable sets of Hiya Hiya bamboo needles that I do most of my work on. I had been having some issues with the tips moving around in their metal fittings, and an unfortunate seam on one of the new cables. I had been looking around at Stitches West to see if it was time to replace my needles with a different brand but I just couldn’t find anything that gave me everything the Hiya Hiya sets could. I checked out ChiaoGoo sets, Addi Clicks, and even the Signatures — but eventually I stumbled across The Knitting Zone’s booth. They saw the issues I was having with my needles and replaced them all, no questions asked. Now I don’t need to replace the sets again and I will (even more) heartily recommend Hiya Hiya for quality interchangeable needles. (I am not being paid to say this — indeed, I have paid them quite a bit over the years!)