On the road knitting

I drove to TNNA in Columbus because Jill had taken the red eye, though I wasn't much better off with just a few hours sleep.  Since Jill had some finishing work to do, she needed to be in the passenger seat.  The car we rented, a Toyota Corolla, had an upper glove box door that Jill's Zen Class case fit over perfectly.  She set up a little workshop right there, with all her supplies.  She sewed on snaps, worked in ends and did some other finishing work. 

Always a little something for a knitter to do.  The right tools (and bags) make the job easy!

Botanicals

Botanicals by jilly2knit

I was playing on polyvore.com today trying to get a sense of what one could do here and I noticed that I could post this. These are products that you can buy, but I just wanted to do a pretty collage. I'm a bit beyond frantic in trying to get ready for TNNA, but this was a fun moment. I want to figure out how to put my sweaters in here!

eBooks Survey

Thanks to everyone who responded to this survey (315).  View the results.

The results are interesting and definitely show a trend toward pdf downloads and ebooks.  In the comments, which are not visible in the link above, many knitters indicate they own LOTS OF BOOKS (no doubt to go with LOTS OF YARN) and many own digital readers.  This bears out one of my observations of spending time with knitters:  many knitters are also readers.

I'm getting ready to travel tomorrow.  I'll take two books and lots of knitting. Lots of paper for other work I need to do.  I won't carry an electronic device as I don't yet have a portable one.  If only everything I need could all be in one device, but that doesn't seem to exist yet, though we're getting closer. 

Here's a pick of Coral Seas.  Buy the Creative Knitting issue and you get this pattern and many more.  We're selling the yarn with free shipping for a limited time. 

Coral Seas

Coral Seas here's a link to this new design from me in Creative Knitting. It is done in Kiwi from Zealana which is a yarn I just love--cotton, merino and possum.

This is a pretty simple piece to knit--bottom trim, body (no shaping) to armholes, armhole shaping, shoulder and front neckline shaping. Shoulder pieces are done separately and I think really make the piece. The neck trim is put on after doing everything else. You can't tell fro the picture, but the front neckline cowls (in fact, I think the photo is the back of the piece). There are little coral knots scattered over the body to create some interest in the fabric.

Think how great this piece would look under a jacket, or worn with slacks or jeans. I can attest to the fact that this piece can be knit fairly quickly--it was done on a very quick turnaround!

To Mothers . . .

Last Saturday at our Y2Knit photo shoot at my home I had the pleasure of working with wonderful people and I wanted to use this Mother's Day post as an opportunity to thank the mothers of each of those lovely women and men who made it possible. Why thank the mothers? Because all of the participants had lovely manners which were exercised by people who clearly used them frequently. What could have been a long and trying day was actually a fun and wonderful one because everyone was gracious and polite.

I am often frustrated by how difficult it is to navigate our daily world where everyone is so focused on themselves that they seem to have forgotten how far good manners can go to making things easier. So the pleasure of experiencing a day with people who are going out of their way to be pleasant and exercise those good manners was truly a pleasure.

This photo is of our mother Jane Lewis helping Irma Bindi in Montisi. Jane is handicapped by neuropathy and arthritis and Irma perhaps the beginnings of senility. But Irma knew what she wanted (I think it was a snap sewn on her purse) and Jane complied. The snazzy pink walker is Jane's. Irma is held in the embrace of a small village and under the watchful eye of caregivers and they each know how to knit. Just as a note, Irma was a bit irascible. The boys (young and old) like to provoke her to get her to unleash a string of curses, but they spend time with her and Jane's favorite moment was when Dario (about 12) cast off Irma's knitting for her.

Pattern Display

The new pattern format is awesome, and I've enjoyed reading about the process from Jill's point of view as I am not as involved as she is in this undertaking.  I print the patterns and create the pdfs for the website.

Jill and I do an occasional retail show and TNNA, a trade show.  We need to have a way to display the patterns that will reveal as much as possible to the person walking by.  We've done the pattern racks and quite frankly, we're tired of shipping or lugging all those pieces with us.  Our recent search found these lightweight mesh displays that arrived today.  I set it up in 15 seconds.  Had the patterns inserted in another 15.  Light. Easy.  Cool looking.  Space saving.

See that black bag next to the display?  It all collapses and fits in there! 4 lbs. 

Look for this display in the Llamajama booth (E15) at the Maryland Sheep and Wool this weekend.

Copywriting

My mother has always envied my ability to write at the keyboard. I learned to do this at my first job as a legal secretary in a busy office in a small-ish county prosecutor's office (criminal division). I could compose draft letters and legal documents for my bosses based on previous similar document and, over time, from scratch. I'm a good writer, but I think I am probably a better editor.

But for the last several years I've been trying to describe my patterns (in 75 words or less--and if you read this blog you are probably aware that I don't get to the point that quickly). Frankly, I am not good at it. I have other language to describe my actual facility, but I'm not going to use it here because at some future date I might be embarrassed by my bad language.

A couple of weeks ago we recruited a copywriter to write copy for us. It is amazing what a real wordsmith can do! At least I know that I was correct that I'm not good at doing it and that it can in fact be done in an interesting and compelling way if you know what you're doing. Sarah is a knitter too. She actually reads my patterns!

So we're all good at various things. When you are a small business person you often do things you aren't really meant to do because it is cheaper than paying someone who is qualified to do it. Long story short: not always the right choice!

Look forward to fabulous text on the reformatted patterns, on the web and wherever else we can put it.

We Aim to Please

We don't always get it right. We try, but we don't. But we do try to be responsive whenever someone has a problem with one of our patterns. I got an email on Wednesday when I was out of the office about an error in a recently released pattern. I looked at the pattern on Thursday and sure enough, we'd missed something--both the tech editor and I had missed it. So I fixed the pattern and emailed new pages to the shop owner. I changed the version number on the pattern so we could let anyone who had purchased the pattern know about the problem and make sure no more of the original version go out. Because we self-publish and print on demand, we can pull any hard copies and update our pdf downloads very quickly.

The shop owner is making multiple samples to sell at a local event (she got our permission to use the pattern for this purpose) and didn't like the way a certain piece looked when not on the body. I arranged to call her Friday morning and we talked about her issue and I gave her a new way to do it over the phone and sent her written instructions (more new pages) for the change. Heard back later that the change was just what she wanted. Everyone is happy. I assume everyone else will like the new version, so that is now in the pattern.

My sample of the project was knitted in two colors because I was using up leftover yarn. I assumed that people would want to do it in solid colors, so didn't specify how I had used my two colors. You got it. I put that into the pattern too.

We're happy to try to make you happy, so if something isn't right, let us know. Please be nice; we didn't mean to be anything less than perfect.

Band is called Aim to Please.

Photographs for Reformatted Patterns

The next step is new photos for the patterns we have been reformatting. Saturday we are having a photo shoot. I have recruited anyone I can find (my spouse has indicated he will be working at his office and is not available) to help out:

Ashley who took the cover photo for YNotKnit will use her photography degree once again by being the photographer.

Adam is going to help with detail photos and then help me with photo editing.

Maureen will be co-Stylist with me.

Kristen will be in charge of continuity and making sure we get all the photos we need.

I have two models coming.

I need to get out props, buy lunch, get cash to reimburse everyone for their out-of-pocket expenses, and pick up key people. I have high hopes and large trepidations. If all goes well we'll have about 40 projects photographed and be that much closer to actually issuing patterns in the new format. Otherwise I may be crying right along with our darling little toddler model for the Natural Baby Collection. ; (

The new pattern format is awesome and I still love the way it looks (after doing this I think that's amazing--and Kristen claims she has a newfound fondness for purple and orange--but this was a pretty big project and I look forward to the reissuing stage!

ReNaming Patterns

We are reaching the end of part A of a pattern reformatting process here at Y2Knit. We started in February and are just finishing the actual process of moving the patterns into the new format. My assistant Kristen has done an incredible job, probably reformatting about 45 of the 51 patterns in this first round. I can tell by the way she clicks the mouse when she is reformatting. She enjoyed the process at the beginning. I think we are probably all a little tired of it right now. I've had other helpers who do checking and cataloging for me while I try to make everything pretty and hopefully consistent.

Some patterns have required new schematics or charts and again, Kristen has done much of the work. I am fortunate to have someone working for me who can do so many pieces of the process.

Another part of the process has been renaming many of the patterns. I don't often have a huge name connection to my designs (I didn't name dolls and toys either), so they often just get named after the stitch pattern or shape and our Marketing Consultant thought we should do better than that.

After a lot of fits and starts we decided to use travel/geographically related names. So I have had a lot of fun (and some frustration) finding names that met our MC's other criteria (not hard to pronounce or spell and NO Italian words). I've learned a lot of things in my quests. I do most of my research online because I can do it at my desk. I am sure I could do better if I had time to go to the library, but this is not something that you can do in bulk. I often have to do several separate searches to find what I think will work because I have to find what I originally thought of and then work off tangents from there. I have learned a lot of things I didn't have any reason to know and probably have no use for but I've enjoyed much of the search.

This process has made me much more conscious of naming my designs--at the beginning!

Organizing Knitting Needles

 I was visiting Sandy yesterday afternoon to take in the spectacular woodland garden of yellow Woodland Poppies, pink Bleeding Hearts and blue and purple Virginia Bluebells.  The sun finally came out and cast lovely light on this colorful scene.  I'm still not carrying a camera with me, so just imagine.  Now add three black and white kittens to the picture and it's beyond perfect.

 I got a great idea from Sandy when we sat down to knit.  She has two kinds of needle storage units for circulars and I admired her wallet style one from Ashland Sky.  I had yet to add one of these to my collection and mentioned that.  She pointed out that she has put all her 16" needles in the wallet case.  HOW BRILLIANT!

I have now done the same.  I'm organizing my 24 and 32" circulars in my other case, with separate pockets for each length.  I'm feeling pretty on top of the needle organization!  I already have my interchangeable in a case and my long and short dpns each in their cases.

That's my spring organizing for today! 

Peeps

This has nothing to do with knitting, though maybe that's not entirely true.  I've talked to a number of knitters in the last week or so that have a (sometimes secret) love of Peeps.  Their true confession usually expands to telling me that they like them when they are stale and chewy.  So, the ritual seems to be to acquire the Peeps, then open the package and let them sit for a couple of days to reach the right consistency. 

My fascination with Peeps includes liking to eat them:  stale, bunnies, and eat the ears first.  I also look forward every year to the Washington Post's Peeps diorama contest.  Such creativity!  I'm not detail oriented enough to tackle a project like this, but I do come up with some concepts.  Yesterday I was walking and listening to NPR's Fresh Air interview with Donovan Hohn about his book Moby-Duck.  His writing started with wanting to explore what happens to shipping containers and their contents that fall into the sea while in transit.  His focus was on a container of rubber duck bath toys.  Can't you just see that diorama?!  The yellow chicks could be the ducks.  Blue tissue for the sea and mock up a ship and shipping container (this is where I stop as I can't imagine taking the time to do that).  Alternatively, undersea creatures and ducks/chicks bobbing above them.  Anyway, I found other things to do with my time.

I have placed a few Peep bunnies on toothpicks stuck in a piece of the Passover horseradish.  They will remain in the open air until Social Knitting tomorrow where I plan to poll participants as to their preference.  Take my poll at the right and let me know yours!  This is anonymous.  No one will ever know. . .

Pure Bliss

I had a half an hour yesterday before I had to leave for a haircut. That turned into 45 minutes when I got a call that my haircutter was running late. I was staring at the copies of the Natural Baby Collection patterns and a list of topics on subjects I could expand upon when I found myself launching Illustrator. For some reason, doing illustrations just makes me happy. It is probably the only drawing I do these days, and it is just pure joy to try to figure out how to communicate something. I get to think about the shapes that I see, not what those shapes are, then try to find a method in two dimensions to make that real to someone else without getting too caught up in the total reality of the drawing.

I came back from my haircut and got to work for another 45 minutes, and now I've worked about 45 minutes today. I've got the bits for a series of drawings to illustrate the flat 3-needle BO. I can probably easily create the illustrations for the 3-needle BO from the same drawings, then these components can be used to create illustrations for other techniques.

I've got so much other work to do that I can't dwell on this any longer today, but it was indeed Pure Bliss.

Y2Knit Salad

Jill and I often refer to the "Y2Knit Spiderweb" to describe the complexities of our business.  Last night I made a salad for the potluck at the shop and was struck by how the colors were close to the Y2Knit colors. 

The potluck was a pleasant interlude in a busy week.  Yummy dishes (y'all can cook!) and sugar in it's best possible forms.  We had fun sharing our knitting projects and deciding what to do with that lovely silk ribbon yarn that I had arranged artfully in a vase. 

Some days Y2Knit does feel like tossed salad.  All the parts are there, mixed up, and we hardly know what to address at any given time.  Phone rings, shop customer comes in, deadlines loom, patterns need to be written, event details ironed out, phone meetings, bills to pay, more phone meetings, dentist appointments, patterns to print and mail, household needs, and so on. We all know what it's like. Seems to be the way of life for most of us.   

Please note that our spider web has NO SPIDER.  It does represent all the things Y2Knit has going on:  patterns, events, shop, teaching, writing, collaborating, etc.  We're beginning to find ways to connect things more meaningfully.  The interconnectedness is fascinating.  Sorting it out is. . . well, a job that needs to be done!

Hope

I rarely carry a camera or take pictures because I have a good memory and can store images and color well in my brain.  I don't have an urge to share what I see because I think you had to be there to really appreciate it.

I finish knitting projects and forget to take pictures before I send them away.  I think I should take pictures of projects in process and then I forget. 

Recently, I almost understood why people carry cameras with them. 

On Sunday, I took a bike ride and saw 17 wild turkeys in a field, no doubt finding some tidbits from last falls harvest.  A couple of the males had their feathers spread--quite a site!  Then I passed fields full of wild grape hyacinth, creating waves of blue among the green.  It took my breath away.  Click, stored that image for my later enjoyment (but alas, not for yours).

Today, the sky is blue after several gray rainy days.  The peach tree in my back yard that grew out of my compost and gives wonderful peaches in July is in bloom.  I can't capture the smell here, but the pink is perfect.  There's a saying, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."  Spring brings eternal hope.

Put a hat on it!

Sometimes it seems like everyone has either a baby or a dog these days. I suppose each has their pros and cons, which I'm not going to go into. Too much poop involved with both for me!

But who doesn't love a baby hat? Fun to knit, quick and usually done in colors no adult would tolerate.

Susan got to do the hat trio for the Natural Baby Collection but I'm cooking up some fun new stuff for another baby collection. This one will be gender specific even though no one in my family seems to produce anything but boys, I want to do girly, fun stuff.

Cupcakes all around!

Busy Woman

This is as close to my office as I could find. I've actually excavated my desk down to just a single sorted pile of stuff. This isn't too far off because I have two desks in my office, one with a desktop which Kristen works at on days she's here, and I work at when she's not and I want the pleasure of a 24" screen. The other desk is my desk, which is always piled with stuff. although I'm constantly telling myself I'll get it tidied up. I have a 17" laptop on that desk, so I related to this photo with the two monitors. When here by myself, I sometimes have both computers going.

I decided to write this post as I posted a document on the back of a file container where I can see if from my desk so it isn't always lost on my desk. Keeping in mind that I should use photos of people I went to google images to find something. If you put "woman at desk" in you get about 13,500,000 results. If you put "busy woman at desk" the number plummets to 6,310,000, almost all of whom have clear desks. The cluttered or worse desks have frantic (posed) looking women. I don't think I look panicked (most of the time) but my desk is definitely being used. Today I have about 12 patterns on my desk, some waiting for edits, some waiting for pattern writing. I also have several files of things which I need to talk to someone about or do something on. My inbox has a couple more patterns with edits. There are also lists of things to do.

I have additional piles of knitting, papers, files and miscellany on a worktable, and a few things on my credenza that feel slightly less critical. Notice the woman in the picture doesn't have knitting needles in her hands. Neither do I. That's what I do when I'm finished working at the end of the day, just like you!

Experience Tuscany in Creative Knitting

Months ago Jill and I wrote an article for Creative Knitting, Experience Tuscany.  It was right after we returned from our 2010 inspirational trip to Tuscany, where Mary Jane became the adored of all the children because she had a knitting class every morning.  The story is told in the article, and it warms my heart to this day thinking about it.  The child pictured here, Anna, was captured on everyone's camera.  She eagerly learned to knit and became a big fan of Mary Jane.  Read the article for yourself and tell us what you think! 

We've set dates for 2012:  September 29-Oct 6 and Oct 6 -13.

April Fools

What a weird day yesterday was. My husband sent me flowers. I am pretty certain this has occurred only once before. He knows I'm overworked and over tired so it was really sweet.

As I ran down the stairs to answer the front door (I work on the european 2nd floor of our house) and came around the corner to where I can see the front door I was struck by the wild colors the person at the door was wearing. I was expecting a delivery person although I couldn't remember that I was expecting anything. So I was, quite literally, momentarily speechless when I opened the door to a young man holding a vase of tropical flowers. I knew it came from Mitch and I knew exactly what he'd said to the florist (after 27 years, of course I do!). The card said "just because".

I was also almost hit by a car while running yesterday. It was perhaps the closest to a full hit I've ever had. This isn't completely uncommon, although I think it happens more when I'm walking than when I'm running. I want to say that the driver was horrified that she hadn't been paying enough attention, and instead of cursing me out (usual response) she apologized and rolled down her window so I could yell at her (which I didn't, because since she apologized, I didn't need to). She said she understood that I was angry and I had every right to be. My response, and hopefully someone else will also hear this: Please. Start paying attention.

My top speed is probably a 10 minute mile which is 6 miles an hour. It takes me about 5 seconds to run across a 2 lane street (probably really 3 seconds). You are in a car. You are going to get where you are going fairly quickly--maybe not as quickly as you'd like, but quick enough. If you hit a pedestrian, you are going to be slowed down. A lot. Think about it. And pay a little attention to the world they are speeding through and just, really stop at a stop sign. I was in a marked crosswalk, next to a park so any driver should be looking for pedestrians. I follow the rules because I am afraid of cars not seeing me. But I can't make you look. You need to do that.

Jill