TNNA Bound!

Hello, everyone!  Deirdre here.  I’m snagging the blog from Hannah today for a quick post about how my June is shaping up here at Knitbot.  It’s gearing up to be the busiest week of my summer, and you can probably guess why.  One of the perks of working for Hannah is that I get to represent Knitbot at TNNA in Columbus this week while she is at home oohing and aahing over her darling new baby girl.  I think we both won in this situation.

If you’re going to be at TNNA too, please stop by to say hello and check out some of Hannah’s samples!  I will be happily sharing booth space with the gracious Fibre Company ladies in booths 312, 314, and 316 throughout the show.  You will be able to see a selection of Knitbot patterns knit up in luscious Fibre Company yarns and order from the entire Knitbot catalog, including Coastal Knits and Knitbot Essentials!

Hannah even designed a new pattern out of the Fibre Company’s latest yarn, Tundra.  You will be able to pre-order copies of the cutest wee baby dress of the year!

This will be my first time at TNNA and I am really looking forward to meeting many of the hard-working shop owners that I have spoken with over the past months.  Please drop by to say hello and take a peek at our Knitbot samples.  It should be a fun time for everyone.

See you there!

Deirdre

Knitbot Assistant

Fibre Company Fangirl

Guest Post: Courtney Kelley & Kate Gagnon Osborne

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! For both of us, our summer knitting looks almost exactly like our winter knitting, as we tend to constantly knit with the cooler seasons in mind. Summer knitting, though, comes with more interruptions - many of which are welcome ones!  Courtney's summers are now occupied with feeding the chickens, tending the garden and watching the sunset and hanging out by the river well into the nighttime. For Kate, this summer has already looked a lot different than summer's past. For the last few years, she has spent her spare time at the local city animal shelter and fostering dogs, knitting in the evenings once everyone has been walked and fed, but this summer she will be spending her spare time - or, really, all of her time when not at work! - wrangling her infant daughter, Charlie.

Courtney's summer knitting often involves socks, something she rarely knits other times of year. She's a sweater knitter, and begrudges the summer heat and turns to smaller accessories. She's already begun obsessing about knitting her 4 year old son a new back-to-school sweater for September...though she has yet to cast on.

Kate's summer knitting has already begun, and when not swatching and designing for Kelbourne - her mind and hands are already working on garments to be published next winter - she has turned to creating outfits for Charlie to wear come fall. She recently finished Hannah's Tiny Rock Coast in the 6-12 month size out of the Fibre Company's Canopy Fingering in the color guava for her to wear once the weather cools in September. She's also on a sewing kick, and has been obsessively making her "Big Butt Baby Pants", a knitting pattern by Rae Hoekstra. Ever with her mind on yarn, though, she recently finished a pair of pants for her to wear with small lambs printed on them to help teach Charlie exactly where some of all her mom's yarn comes from. {And who can resist lambs on pants?}

Regardless of what the day brings, knitting is always on our minds, and we're not far from a pair of needles and yarn.

- Courtney and Kate

Guest Post: Pam Allen

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