I have stepped away for a few weeks to enjoy my new baby girl. As a gift to you dear knitters I offer you a mini-series of guest posts by some treasured folk from the knitting industry. They share with us what knitting in the summer means for them. Enjoy! "A multi-tasker, I’m not. I’m at my best when I work on one thing at a time. I greatly admire my friends who can stir a sauce, listen to the radio, chat effortlessly with company, and light up when the phone rings—all at the same time. Not I. My brain and general sensibilities are designed for quiet, solitary activities that focus my entire attention. In these, I thrive. I like to read. I like to knit. And I like to hike.

Before starting Quince & Co, I imagined that owning a yarn company meant hours of knitting with yarns made just the way I like them. Instead, owning a yarn company means hours and hours of attending to many tasks—all at the same time--that have nothing to do with yarn and stitches. Every night I leave my office with my knitting bag, certain that tonight I’ll swatch a stitch I want to explore. But rarely do I unpack that bag. I leave my desk too late to have time on the other side of dinner. It’s dishes, shower, and bed.

Come the weekend, I’m rarely inspired to start a project. My cluttered life leaves me dazed. How to regroup? Find a trail in the woods. Without a phone, without a computer, away from the distractions of laundry spilled onto the floor, a jammed refrigerator, a box of overdue kitty litter—my mind settles and I find a window, often onto a new knitting idea.

Last Saturday, coming down Baldface mountain, I decided to try out the video feature on my new phone. Though the images can’t recreate what it really feels like to stand in a quiet wood in the late afternoon, the sounds I heard--crooning water and trilling bird— come through quite fine. And these days, they’re as satisfying to me as the click of a good pair of needles."

- Pam Allen