Muddlin' on

It has been an interesting few days. Work continues on sample shawls for workshops, and I marked a Knitting Accreditation level on Friday afternoon. Friday morning I spent looking for year-end stuff the bookkeeper has requested, and trying to clear off this desk!

Yesterday I went to the spinning guild and gave the reader's digest version of the Triangle Shawl Workshop. It appeared to go quite well... in all about half of the spinners in attendance participated, and, since many of us want to actually spin when we're at a meeting because of the rarity of uninterrupted spinning time, I thought this was a good turnout. The focus of yesterday's workshop was on the design study and I was very pleased to have people telling me that they liked the way I described decreases, and how they would be trying some of this stuff out on other projects.

Today I fixed the two typos on the participant's handouts and re-worked my teaching notes. The word on the top: Breathe! I get so excited about this stuff I gather momentum, so I need to realize that other people need me to breathe so they can hear the information in real time!

Hopefully some of these people will test knit two of the three patterns that were in their handouts! Tonight we have friends coming for dinner.

Tomorrow is another Knit Together day. This issue is getting closer, but I need to contact some retailers, so I took a couple of days to get that done.

Morning knitting these past few weekends has been spent on the Orkney Pi, which I started when we were in Great Britain last fall. I'm about 84% complete now, and I have to make a decision about the next stage. It's 60" in diameter, and it hasn't been blocked yet. If I do the next set out rounds, it will be 67" in diameter when the knitting is over. That's not a shawl, that's a blanket! But it's beautiful, this design by Liz Lovick. I'm almost finished the outer ring of trees.

Now, I'm off to update the Ravelry project for this one, and go visit our 'peeps.'

I was having SUCH a good day...

The latest issue was clicking together, I got a close up of the flowers for the project on the cover of the next issue, and tidied up a few edits to the knitter feature. I had also drafted out the yarn shop text.

I thought "I should call it a day," at that point but nooo, I had to keep going.

I decided to lay out the mini project, a scarf with two pages of text that I need to get onto one half page. Naturally, it didn't *quite* fit, so I figured I would copy the layout into a WordPerfect document and print it for my working copy to test my edits. About five minutes before Darling called, "Dinner's ready!" I got the dialogue box telling me the memory was full. Curses!

Sometimes, when that happens, I can copy the text and paste it over, but not today. I lost everything I did for the previous two hours, including my lovely, creative, abbreviations.

So, I'm off to cry in my rum and coke. This day is officially over.

Two, Two, Two knitters in one...

Day, that is.

After another long day in the office, I've completed yet another book review, and the Canadian Knitter feature for the next two issues.

There's always something to do here at Canadian Guild of Knitters.

Yesterday it took over an hour to take all the spam out of our three e-mail accounts on the cgknitters.ca domain. If anyone knows of a really effective spam-jamming software, let me know!

Currently I'm testing the knitting for upcoming projects, and making more sample shawls for upcoming workshops.

Now that my eyes are squared off, it's time to go and knit!

Wind beneath my wings

Like any enterprise, Canadian Guild of Knitters offers up joyous days, downer days, and all-mixed-up days. Today was the latter, but I'm choosing to focus on the joyous events within it.

It began with a nasty headache. At 6:30 a.m. Not fair! Several Advil (R) and breakfast later, the edge was off of the beast within.

Today was mail day. Mail days can go either way. Usually they're positive, and today's was elating! To those of you who take the time to write comments on your renewal cards: thank you! You place a gust of wind beneath my wings, and I can plod on through the day, even when I am in Advil-ville!

At least four more copies of the Knitting Accreditation Program and a record six knitting bags were processed by our shipping (ahem) department today!

At 4:00, Darling coaxed me out into the beautiful sunny day that I suspect was the reason for my trip to Advil-ville.

People sometimes ask me what Darling does while I'm writing and shipping and databasing. This winter he has taken up watercolour painting - birds, of course. Just after Christmas I set up a blog for his bird photos: it's www.bhp.peyton.ca. Darling has studied the nesting habits of birds since he was a young lad growing up in England. My passion for knitting is very much equal to his passion for bird studies. If you like birds, stop by his blog.

So now it's after dinner, and I *should* be processing more paperwork and survey responses. But I've enjoyed a delicious barbecue burger and a 'big girl' pop, so I'm going to go and knit a few rounds on one of the sample shawls for my upcoming workshops.

To those of you who appreciate the effort that goes into Canadian Guild of Knitters, from writing a half-page article, to processing memberships, to shipping orders -- thanks. It means a lot!

Won't ANYbody play ball?

Is that one dejected looking puppy, or what?

Monday night while Darling and I were inserting magazines into the envelopes prepared last weekend, Zoey (Canadian Guild of Knitters' mascot since 2004) asked to get in on the fun. The problem is, her idea of fun is chasing the ball that she dropped into the box top in the background.

She looked so sad, I grabbed the camera and took this shot. Really, she *could* have licked a few of those envelopes while she was there! (not really... we use an envelope sealer for that -- don't be alarmed!)

Yesterday morning I got a chance to block the scarf made from the Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn. It gained 2 1/4 inches in width and almost 14 inches in length! I'm very pleased with the way it opened up the double eyelets.

The knitters at guild the other night tried to convince me about the yarn, but still, I'm looking for substitutes to produce the final draft of this pattern.

This morning the Canadian Guild of Knitters' website (www.cgknitters.ca) got an update. Do stop by and visit the sites of our retailers. I enjoy doing this periodically myself!

So, now that the website and blog are updated, it's off to work on the next issue of Knit Together!

Envelopes done and a wee look back

After a couple days' 'down time' -- I must say, even the sinus infection last October didn't take me to the mat like this week's cough and cold did -- I'm (sing it now) Back in the office again.

Knit Together was delayed due to a scheduling issue at the printer's, which meant that I got the weekend to work on the prep work for the mailing.

As always, Darling helped put on the postage, while I put on labels and attached membership cards to the appropriately-labelled envelopes, ready to pop the magazines into when they come in on Monday. Something to do while watching American Idol! The magazines will be in the mail on Tuesday.

Years ago, but not at the very beginning of my knitting life, I started to photograph my knitting. You see, I used to knit for yarn shops, and one year I kept a list of the 80-some articles I made. I came across it a couple years later, and realized I couldn't visualize even half of the items on the list. So, I began taking photos of my knitting. After my day in the office, I decided to scan my photos so all my craft life photos can be put into one directory on the computer.

The dress in this photo is one of the earliest photos I have of my knitting. I have no idea what I used as a backdrop, or who I made the dress for, but apart from the focus, I'm really pleased with the picture, and remember being very pleased with the dress itself.

Back in 1991, I made my first visit to Colorado. Six months later I learned to spin and learned that six months earlier I had been in the -- well -- wool mecca of the western United States. Sigh.

Anyway, I learned to spin to learn more about the way yarn was made. Like most endeavours, I jumped right in, and, next thing I knew, I was doing demonstrations for the spinner's guild. The side benefit of this was teaching a new generation about the wonders of fibres. The photo at the right was taken in 1993. The wheel in the photo was my first spinning wheel -- an Ashford Traveller. Not period, but it got the point across. The dress I am wearing was the one my mother wore for the 1967 Centennial celebrations, and the apron actually is a family artifact: it belonged to my great-great Aunt Christie.

Next on the agenda: a book review for the November issue -- a brand new book about colour -- just for knitters! I can't wait!

Another day of editing

Today the next-to-last edits were e-mailed to the printer, and our 'sneak peek' for the November issue was readied.

Yesterday, the label information was prepared, to be ready when the magazines come back from the printer.

As another print cycle winds down, I'm doing anything but. A new winter's cold that set in this morning, may have something to say about that...