Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel

Last March, I hopped a plane to Cleveland, OH, and visited the super-talented Knitting Daily TV team.  I was fortunate to appear in one of the episodes for season three.  Here I am chatting with Shay Pendray.

If you click the image above, you will be taken to Interweave's Knitting Daily website, where, if you log in as a member, you can download the free pattern for Ebony Jewelwing.  This is one of my favorite projects from The New Stranded Colorwork.  It ultimately was left out of the book, due to length constraints, but I'm so pleased to be able to share it with you this way - you know how I love free stuff...!

You can see me demonstrating some techniques using this pattern in episode #306 of Knitting Daily TV.  Check your local PBS station listings to find out when it airs.  The season will also be available on DVD, too.
 

By Any Other Name

A while back, I promised to reveal the name of my upcoming book, as soon as I was sure it wouldn't be changing (again).  I am pleased to announce that today is that day:

While it won't be in stores until the end of October, it can be pre-ordered here. 

It is my hope that reading my book will be like a visit into my imagination, for those brave souls willing to stop by.  Inside it are twenty designs that I made up, based on things I saw, thought about, or had feelings for.  There is also a collection of information that I have accumulated through trial, error, learning and teaching.  I have done everything I could think of to make it interesting, accessible, and inspiring.  There is also a bangin' cast on & bind off that I promise you have never seen before and will love.

To all of you who have listened to me rant/brag/snivel/navel-gaze through the process of getting my first book to print, I offer my sincere gratitude.  Without your support, I could never have made it. 

I can't wait to see what the knitters do with it!
 

Dammed

I was minding my own business last week, when my business sneaked up on me and demanded my attention.  Turns out that when you write a book, the publisher sends you a bunch of mocked-up pages for review, and you are supposed to go over everything and make changes & corrections, etc. and of course, hurry up already. Receiving the pages was not a surprise.  Receiving them right now was.  I somehow had it in my head that this part would happen sometime in June, and my attention is well and truly diverted at the moment.

So while I am nicely focused on all sorts of things that are not my book at the moment, my book needs me, and I can't seem to get past this weird emotional blockage I have about doing that work.

Once I got past the ebullient feeling of seeing my little project all grown up and polished into real book pages, I found that I couldn't look at it for one more second. 

What vexes me, I wonder?  Here is a list of possibilities (bear with me while I navel-gaze my way through this one, won't you?):

I am nearing the end of the process, but I'm not really ready to let it go?
I have been so focused on teaching, talking, and talking about teaching that I forgot how to write?
I have been so focused on writing that I forgot how to knit?
I'm bored stupid with my own work, and the sight of projects I've been looking at for a year is making me squirrelly?

Probably all of the above apply, but that last one seems most likely.  I am so out of love with everything in my book.  The thought of combing through all of it again appeals to me in the same way as the notion of hosting an intestinal parasite.  I can't believe I ever thought any of it was remotely interesting, never mind clever, and I'm sure my publisher must feel the same way.  How embarrassing for both of us: me for creating drivel, and them for printing it.  I know that big undertakings always get like this at the end, and let's face it; I have never worked this long on anything before without being handed a newborn infant for my trouble.  I also know that (much like with the newborn infant) I'll probably love it again later.  But I really need a break from it just now.

And then there's the profound lack of gratefulness inherent in this attitude:  "boo hoo...my book got published and I'm tired of thinking about it....." Makes me sick just hearing it come out of my head.  What kind of picky princess gets all the way to the finish line and then lays down for a nap right in front of it? 

My kind, it seems. 

There's only one thing to pull me off dead center when I get like this:  I hereby promise myself a fiber-related treat at the conclusion of required efforts.  Gotta love self-bribery.  I also hereby solicit suggestions for fiber-related motivational enhancers.