Happy place...I'm in my happy place...

So I thought maybe Twitter and Facebook would help me get things back under control. But no - I've gotten so overwhelmed that I've abandoned them AND this poor blog. I'm determined not to post yet again about how busy I am or what I have to get done. Instead, let's talk about fun stuff. Like the fact that I just planted a bunch of Russian Red Kale in the garden along with a Tarragon plant and spicy italian basil. And the fact that we have fennel coming out our ears. Boy can that stuff grow! If anyone has any great fennel recipes, please pass them along. We're totally overwhelmed. I asked our new neighbors if they liked fennel, and she was crazy enough to say "oh, yeah - I love it!" I immediately thrust two enormous plants at her with the admonition that she should be more careful about saying she'd take anything off our hands! Which reminds me...we need to bring them some eggs.

So we have new neighbors! Again. For the 4th time in 5 years (although technically the house was empty when we moved in - the kids of the former resident were fixing it up to sell it and they were in and out). These ones seem perfect - they've got 4 kids between them and the ages are really similar to Sydney & Owen. They're much more appropriate playmates than the 11-year-old who lived there before (she was very nice, but the age difference was just too much for kid play and she wasn't quite old enough to babysit...).

As summer moves right along (how in the world does time go by so fast these days?), I'm furiously working to finish up some new designs to release at Sock Summit. Ah, yes, Sock Summit, the source of so much stress and angst these past couple of weeks. The class handouts were due yesterday, and I managed to crank them out. Those slacker teachers with only one class got nothin' on me! And since you're here, reading this blog that has for all intents and purposes been abandoned, I'm going to give you a first glimpse at two of the new SS designs.

The first is truly a glimpse because I only had a toe done on the day I took photos. The stitch pattern on the foot is fun, but the crowning glory of this sock is its very unusual cuff. It's like the cuff on the Sydney sock taken to a whole 'nother level.



The yarn is the lovely tencel blend from Lavender Sheep. The colorway's going to be introduced at Sock Summit. I don't even know if I'm supposed to be showing it here, so don't tell her, okay? Be assured that it's 1000x more gorgeous in person!

Since I'm all about crazy cuffs these days and Sock Summit is all about crazy knitters, the other sock I'm going to show you is my cable coup de grace. It's called Butterfly Garden because of the butterfly cable running up the front. I adore this cable and have been trying for three years to work it into something. I finally broke down and put it on a sock (I was saving it for a sweater, but really, who am I kidding?).



So that the butterflies have something to keep them occupied, there are flowers on the back.



These are made in the very tasty Shalimar Yarns sock yarn. They'll have a booth at Sock Summit as well, and I was going to try to make a second sock so they could have a sample in their booth, but the top of the ball looks suspiciously like it has been Owenized (as in, Owen plus scissors plus yarn cake equals not fun for mommy when she suddenly finds her yarn has been cut into a gazillion pieces when she's halfway through the foot...). Plus there are only 24 hours in the day, and try as I might, I can't go without sleep.

Now I'm trying to decide if I should go upstairs and continue with the pulp novel I started last night, or if I should turn on the tv and do some knitting. It's really too late to start a movie and I hate watching network, so the novel may have it. I won't even consider continuing to sit at the computer so I can update my websites. That's just going to have to wait until tomorrow!

Mojo - are you back?

So, it has been awhile, hasn't it? A lot has been happening here in Knittin' Mom land. First, we survived TNNA, the big yarn/needlecraft trade show in Columbus, Ohio, two weeks ago. Well, more than survived - we had our best show ever! It was our 4th time exhibiting and we're finally starting to feel like old pros. We sold lots of our new designs (which you can see at the top of our Design page) and the book got rave reviews. We booked a bunch of trunk shows for the book and I'm now trying to get my act together so I can actually schedule a few book signings/workshops this fall.

Hot on the heels of TNNA was Black Sheep Gathering down in Eugene, where we shared a booth with Lavender Sheep. I was so wiped out from TNNA I could barely function, but fortunately Donna was not in the same bad shape. She went down for the whole weekend and manned the booth with Yvonne. I showed up briefly with family in tow on Saturday (they went strawberry picking while I struggled to stay coherent in the booth) but was pretty useless. I did get a few pics of the booth.





Don't you just love all that yummy yarn? And this final pic shows the fabulous Grumperina-reknitted Path of Flowers along with one of my favorite new designs from Crochet All Day - the cow bag!



If you missed Black Sheep, come see us at Sock Summit. Speaking of Sock Summit...for some reason I thought it might be a good idea to design a bunch of new patterns to debut in our booth there. What was I thinking? Oh, right - I wasn't.

I just finished the sample for the first sock, and it turned out spectacularly. I'm going a little bit crazy with these socks, since the place will be swarming with avid sock knitters, and making them a bit more challenging than usual (at least, the one I just finished is a tad challenging with some seriously crazy cabling). I'm also using some handpainted yarn that I don't always get to use because of the need to have highly photographable, widely-available yarns used in my normal patterns. I'm going to have these designs reknit in commercial yarns this fall and add them to the regular line in January, but for now, I'm having fun using yarns that I don't normally get to, like Lavender Sheep!

I'm also trying to recover my home-making mojo. Between the final push to get the book done and TNNA-prep (and recovery), the house has basically gone to hell. Bill has done a pretty good job of maintaining, but he gets sick of being the only one doing anything (and I don't blame him - I get cranky about that, too). After I get over myself (I just wrote a freaking BOOK after all - I shouldn't have to do housework too!), I do try to help out as much as I have energy for, but I really want to get back to baking and cooking instead of driving down to Mickey D's for dinner. The kids are starting to like it a little bit too much...

I've started by trying to make sure we use up our CSA share each week instead of letting it molder in the fridge and then using it to feed the compost or the chickens. I don't know why I find this so strange, but Sydney is absolutely ape for artichokes. She loves the things! I find them very strange and a little scary, but I'm willing to cook them more often in order to get a veggie down her little gullet.

I should also admit that we were able to squeeze a little family fun into the mix. In fact, I've been trying to make sure the kids aren't totally neglected now that they're not in school, which takes a bit of time. The Oregon coast just experienced record low tides, so we headed out for the morning to check out the tide pools. It was very cool.







We were out by Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, which is normally out in the water but when we were there, was almost totally accessible. We missed the very low tide (didn't get up early enough), but we were still able to walk almost all the way out. Very cool!



Sydney thought it would be a good idea to make "sand angels".



Crazy kid! If you can't get enough of the beach (or can't get to the beach because, like me most of my life, you're in the middle of the country), check out the exclusive design I just finished for T-SPOT, a lovely little shop in Manzanita, which is a beach town just south of Cannon Beach.



It's called, surprisingly, the Manzanita Tam and you can get it from T-SPOT along with lots of good other stuff. And here end these messages!

Gardening!

Even though we've been eating take-out and fast-food nonstop for the past few weeks (and have thrown most of our CSA veggies to the chickens because we didn't manage to eat all that lettuce), we've been planting a ridiculous vegetable garden. Our entire front yard has pretty much been converted to garden, and we just added a bed to our parking strip. We've got popcorn, pumpkins, watermelon, cucumbers (although these seem to be struggling), blueberry bushes, strawberries, green beans, fennel, mint, sage, thyme, rosemary, asparagus, tomatoes, lettuce, peas, grapes, potatoes and zucchini. Oh, and artichokes. If a global food crisis hits, we'll be all set!

Here are a few pics, taken a few weeks ago (everything's bigger now after our recent hot spell).







Now I just need to find time to actually use/preserve all these veggies! At least they're still in the growing stage so I've got a month or two before I need to worry...

This weekend is all about finishing Breaking Dawn (I'm almost there!) and cleaning the house. The book files were uploaded to the printer yesterday, so I've got some respite from that before proofs come back for approval. Then, I just have to sit back and wait for August! Apart from all the pre-publication publicity I've been trying to do. I sent galleys off for review to Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly (that's about a one in a million shot, but I figured it was worth the $30 bucks in materials and postage, just in case!) and Booklist. I'm all set up with Unicorn Books, which is the distributor that nearly every yarn shop orders their books from. They're taking pre-orders on their website and will have an advance copy of the book in their booth at TNNA. I've also sent applications to a couple other distributors that deal with the library market.

If any of you are in Portland and want to see an advance copy of the book, they've got it at Twisted (they're taking preorders there as well). We'll also have it at Black Sheep in the Lavender Sheep booth.

And now, back to the vampires and werewolves.

Something old, something new...

Even though it probably seems like my life is all about socks right now (and that wouldn't be too far from the truth), this spring has actually been pretty focused on lace. I'm just getting ready to release the new batch of June designs at TNNA next week, and most of them are lace. I had a bunch of single skeins that I couldn't resist any longer, so they somehow turned into lace scarves. And a stole. Oh, and I managed to knit a sweater in there somewhere. Don't worry...I had lots of help.

My first helper spent her spring reknitting two of my existing lace designs in new yarns. One of them was in a yarn that's not widely available enough, and the other was in a yarn that just didn't show the pattern off. I'm happy to say that they've both returned and are making me extremely happy.

Here's the new photograph of Kiwassa, knit in Schaefer Andrea:



But the REAL winner was this, the new Path of Flowers reknit in Mountain Colors Winter Lace, which Grumperina called one of her favorite lace projects ever. High praise, for sure!







Compare these to the original:



Quel difference, no? Of course, it helps that it's modeled by Bill's very photogenic cousin who was here for a visit over Memorial Day weekend. As much as I love that fuzzy orange Kidsilk Haze, it was just a bad original choice for the project. I started that orange sample three years ago, so I must admit that I've learned a lot since then...

And now, onto the new stuff. We've got a wrap:



We've got a buffalo-down scarf:



We've got a silk-and-cashmere cabled lace scarf:



We've got a fuzzy green mohair monster (I mean, sweater!):



And my personal favorite, fun-factor-wise, is an asymmetric granny square scarf!



Bill likes it, too...



And now I'd better get myself back to work. I need to send galleys of the book off to a bunch of reviewers and continue to get prepped for TNNA. I was woken up at 6 am this morning by poor Owen, who has a terrible cough (blasted springtime colds - it's June for goodness sakes!), after staying up until nearly midnight reading Breaking Dawn (which I finally got from the library after being in the hold queue for two months). When I get back from Columbus, I am going to sleep for a week straight!

Calling all PDX knitters...

I know, I know - two blog posts in one day? It's crazy, but I wanted to mention this awesome sock club that's opening tomorrow morning with a very limited number of slots. It's local dyers and designers, and the coolest thing is that every other month, the dyer/designer for that month's project will meet with the folks in the club for lunch at Gino's in SE Portland (the awesome restaurant of sock-club organizer Deb Accuardi). It's called the Community Sock Club, because the members will be meeting in person and hopefully building a little sub-community of Portland-area knitters. Such a rad idea!

Just what I needed!

So, after I have my little freak-outs, life almost always seems to turn the corner soon after. At the high point of the freak-out, it seems like things are completely unmanageable and will always be that way. Then, at some point, I tell myself that it's not worth it, and it's okay if I just walk away. Nobody's going to die if I suddenly stop writing patterns or tinkering with my website. People will still learn to knit socks if I'm not there to teach them. As soon as I think about quitting, and realize that I can, I mellow out and realize that I don't want to quit. And I re-admit to myself how lucky I am to be living this life. Positive thinking begets more positive thinking, and the sun comes back out.

Yesterday, after a mostly-sleepless night brought on by restless children and too-hot-to-sleep weather, I taught a 6-hour toe-up sock workshop to a fabulous, fun bunch of students and came home feeling fired-up again. There was a little box waiting for me, and inside it were 5 copies of this!



Even though I've printed out multiple book-like copies of the book, there's nothing like seeing a glossy bound copy to take your breath away. It's so cool. Here are a few shots from the inside:







And the back cover...



Of course, the actual book will look slightly different - it will be a little smaller (8" x 10" instead of 8-1/2" x 11") and have some additional edits, but all-in-all, I got to hold my book for the first time yesterday. It was pretty awesome.

Not to mention, I managed to score a couple great blurbs for the back, one from Clara Parkes and one from Cat Bordhi. Of course, I sort of have an "in" with Cat since she's my self-publishing mentor and role model, but I was still quite honored and delighted that she liked the book so much. Just because she was my teacher doesn't mean she'd automatically love my book... Here's what will be added to the back cover:

A veritable toe-up masterclass complete with helpful worksheets, well-illustrated technique tutorials, and 15 fresh and varied patterns from someone who is truly passionate about socks.
- Clara Parkes, KnittersReview.com, author of The Knitter’s Book of Yarn and The Knitter’s Book of Wool

Any knitter will succeed and thrive under Chrissy’s tutelage in this comprehensive and impeccably organized course in toe-up socks, with its generous menu of heels, toes, custom worksheets, and stunning original designs.
- Cat Bordhi, author of New Pathways for Sock Knitters and Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles

High praise from two of my idols! I'm starting to think that this little book might just do okay.

I've got to go get poor Bill some coffee - he was up all night with Owen, who is suffering from some mighty allergies and gushing bloody noses in the wee hours. Poor little guy wakes up looking like he's been in a boxing match. I'm so glad Sydney seems to have missed out on the allergy gene...

Freaking out!

So I had a major meltdown this evening. I'm dealing with this giant pattern order, and of course I ran out of ink in the middle. Then, I've got the book to contend with, including the not-so-small problem of paying for printing. To top it all off, Sock Summit registration opened this morning (and pretty much sold out within the first hour). This is good, since I was totally worried that nobody would sign up for my classes (and that fear was totally unfounded - my classes sold out along with everyone else's). But it also means I have to get my butt in gear and get my class materials together.

If this knitting-related madness wasn't enough, I have to teach a recycling class to 30 preschoolers tomorrow morning, something for which I am completely unprepared. What am I doing to get ready? Downing a bottle of wine and listening to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones at much too high of a volume.

I have a bunch of garden pictures to blog, but they're stuck inside my camera. We worked almost all weekend on the front yard, and it's looking pretty darn good. The biggest issue is space - I've still got sage, basil, cucumbers and a couple of errant zucchini plants to fit in. We gave the neighbors some sugar pumpkin starts that had sprouted in our asparagus patch from the pumpkin I tossed off the front porch last fall. Aren't volunteer veggies the best?

In the all-consuming world that is book prep, I managed to spent this evening putting together the book website (go there and click on the cover thumbnail, and you can see some of the gorgeous pattern pics that will be in the book). I think it turned out okay - the best thing is that I did a final round of edits on the book today, and it's looking DARN good, if I do say so myself. Every bit of feedback that I've gotten has been over-the-top positive, so I'm slowly admitting to myself that it might actually be a winner. Yay!

Now I've got to stop typing because I know that too much wine and too-loose fingers are not the best combo. Time to go to bed and mentally prep for those 30 preschoolers, expecting to learn something about recycling... I'm going to take a handful of stuff from the worm bin and dazzle them with the squirmy wormies. Preschoolers are pretty easily amused, right? Wish me luck!

Who says triangular shawls are only for little old ladies?

Yes, there's this perception out there that triangular lace shawls are something only a little old lady would wear. My girl Sarah from Knot Another Hat disagrees. At the TKGA show this past weekend, she was rockin' the Toe the Line shawl with her new purple hair. You can see photos on her blog (and enter a contest to win lace yarn and pattern of your choice).

Triangular shawls...they won't magically turn you into a little old lady. On the other hand, I would love to see a little old lady in a Toe the Line rockin' some purple hair!

PS - since I have such a hard time blogging these days, I'm going to give Twitter a try. You can follow me there at @knittinmom. Tweet tweet! Facebook is up next...in all my free time.