Naniboujou at Naniboujou!

I've been meaning to share these pics for awhile but it's hard to fit everything in when you only blog twice a month. Therefore, in keeping with my New Year's resolution to blog more, I've decided not to wait until weeks have passed before posting again.

My mom & step-dad visited Naniboujou Lodge over New Year's and Mark was kind enough to e-mail me these pictures of Mom modeling the socks (the very same socks pictured in Knitty) at their namesake lodge.



Don't you love that giant fireplace? Here's a great view of the incredible dining room ceiling:



And here's the beachfront that the lodge faces:



Isn't it delightfully grey and gloomy? I love the beach in the wintertime with the big dark waves and icy rocks. No sunbathing on that vacation, I'm sure! It has been such a delight to get so many e-mails from people who have a connection to Naniboujou Lodge. Mom showed the owners the pattern during their visit and they seemed quite delighted even though they are not knitters. If you ever have a reason to vacation in northern MN, it's a great place to stay!

I'm currently in the midst of a frenzy of pattern printing, editing, e-mailing, re-photographing and website updating. I know I promised to give some sneak peeks of the newest designs, so here are a few of my favorites.

From new GYW designer Leila Wice, these are Fancy Pants, modeled by the way-too-adorable Imogene.



This shot was SO cute it made the cover of our new catalog. We also started distributing a new line of felted crochet patterns from designer Sharon Braden who lives south of Portland. She's got four different animals, but I have to say the sheep is my favorite.



(You can also make it in black.)



Most of the new designs for this go-round were done by others since I was busy working on socks for the book and, let's face it, slacking off. I did manage to get a couple things into the pattern line. First for baby, the Entrelac Baby Sacque (thanks to my tech editor Amy for suggesting I spell "sacque" en francais):



This is a design I've had in my head for a couple of years but never got around to putting it down in yarn. After my obsession with the Garterlac Dishcloth, I decided to finally get off my duff and just do it already. It was, of course, pretty darn fast since babies are nice and compact.

The second design is one I started working on in the airport on the way home from TNNA in Columbus last June. I finished it and it sat on my office shelf (and sat, and sat) until I finally decided to just write it up (it took all of about half an hour - what was I waiting for?). I named it "Snow Day" since it was formatted right around the time we had our massive snowstorm. Unfortunately I didn't get around to photographing it in the snow - maybe next year because we're NOT going to have any more snow in Portland this year, right?



And now it's back to work with me. I'll let you know when I get the website updated with ALL the designs and a few new shops. I'll get it done one of these days, really!