At the printer's

Knit Together is at the printer's -- I just uploaded the file to their ftp site. It's always a good feeling. I'll have proofs by Tuesday, do a final run-through to catch those nasty apostrophes, and we'll be good to go. Here's a sneak peek at one of the yarns I reviewed last weekend:

It's Cabin Fever's Silk and Silver, a kettle-dyed yarn with merino, silk, nylon and actual flecks of silver in it. Yum!

Other items coming out in this issue include part 2 of the twisted stitch series, the second segment of Getting Gauge, our final nod to the International Year of Natural Fibres, and a over a dozen Random Acts of Knitting.

As Knit Together winds down, I look forward to the new assignments Canadian Guild of Knitters will be doing for A Needle Pulling Thread. The knitting adventure continues, with articles about steeking, ribbing, and vintage knitting.

Writing Along

Another full day in the office. I discovered last night there were two yarn reviews needed for this issue! YIKES! So, last night I chose two yarns and worked frantically this morning to get them sampled. The research is done and there's just the text to finish drafting.

Finding a designer has been another particular challenge, and I've been lucky enough to find one who has a blog. I did half the research before ever getting to the interview!

There is other, sad news: in my last post, I mentioned 'planned illnesses', which is to say illnesses of which we, as a family, were aware. One was a terminal diagnosis my sister's fiance received this past October. The disease took him quickly -- on January 12. Having passed his age just a year ago, I can say with conviction that 49 is too young to die.

There is some good news: the other 'planned illness' another family member endured in the past two months ended with the best possible scenario.

The 'unplanned illness' of our cat had a happy ending, too; he's eating well, and purring once more.

Life sure has its ups and downs.

Happy New Year!

I knew December would be hairy, but I never expected it to be blogless! There were a few illnesses during the month, some expected and one (the cat's) really unexpected. I figured something was up the night Wolfie (the cat) snuggled up to Zoey (the dog). By the end of the next day we knew something was wrong, and on the Tuesday before Christmas we ran the old boy (Wolfie is 14) to the vet. He "enjoyed" an overnight stay. Before it was over he was a VERY sick cat. He appears to be on the mend, but I never knew I would be so attentive to the intake and output of the cat.

2009 was a really tough year for me on several levels, and I'm happy to see the back of it, even though it's an adjustment to type 201 instead of 200... this happens at the end of every decade!

The next issue of Knit Together made some good progress today. I wrapped up a couple regular articles and got a half page feature ready, save for two photographs. I found just the chart for my twisted stitch piece. The mini project in this issue is JUST PLAIN FUN! I test knitted it during the past weeks, and I hope you'll like it as much as I did!


As far as knitting goes, I continue to work on yarn reviews, and a few baby projects. Since the last post, I've learned there's a 90% chance that the new "grandbaby" will be a girl, so I set out to knit the Harvey Kimono from Natural Knits for Babies and Moms [Ktog, Feb/07] I'm using yarn from my stash (believe it!)by Sunbeam called Montego. I can't remember where I got it, but it's from the days before they put yardage on the label!

Lunch hours and evening meetings have helped me get more Baby Surprise Jackets done for the same wee one: the one above is King Cole Splash with blue Astra chosen to match the blue fleck. I had the trim yarn for the pink-trimmed one in my stash and varied the pattern to offset the front closure. Eventually both will have the happyface buttons shown on the pink one.

I love knitting for babies!

Some of the knit lists have been rambling about new years' resolutions for knitting. I have decided just to go back to my "in and out" system of trying to reduce stash. I can only buy yarn to replace yarn that I knit up. The goal for 2010 is "net zero stash growth". There, I said it. It must be do-able!

I wish you all a knitterly knew year!