We're making progress with Stitches. We are almost finished making signs for the booth. We've been knitting a lot of samples, and lots of them are done, so while Amy watched the store, we had quite an exciting day yesterday, with a trip to the laundrymat to felt:


And then today, Kyle hooked Cynthia's car to Deb and Kyle's trailer:
When she got home, her Kevin helped attach the electrical system. It was a great relief to know that cars behind would be able to see turn signals, brakes, and lights.

Now that we have the use of a trailer, we can load it slowly over the week, and unload it a little more slowly too. At other shows, when we rented a truck, we had to load it and unload it in a single day. It will be nice to have time to think a little more about what we're doing!

Now it's time to go back to knitting. There's a shawl to finish. Two sleeves of a sweater. Several patterns to finish writing. Several signs to finish. A brochure to write. A hedgehog to felt. And our fashion-show garment isn't... well, it isn't started yet. We keep telling ourselves that it's a quick knit and that we have until Friday morning.

We're not panicking quite yet.

We're trying to get ready for Stitches East. As you know if you have been reading our blog and listening to us in person, it is a huge knitting show in Baltimore. It's in a week and a half. We have many things ready to go, but much remains undone.

Both of us are knitting like fiends. We are still both feeling behind. (Knitting is not always relaxing.) Our packing list continues to grow. Just this morning we realized that we should take our felted oven mitt sample and the corresponding books. We wonder: what other obvious things will we forget?

We need to make signs for the booth. We at have the fabric and the ideas for how to put the signs together. Ideas are easy!

We have a trailer hitch on Cynthia's car, but we have not yet had time to test the thing to be sure that it fits Deb and Kyle's trailer. We are both clueless about how to hook it up. And we are not completely sure that it is long enough to fit our grid system. Both are 8 feet. We are hoping that the actual measurement of the grid is 7'11" or that that trailer is 8'1".

And one more little question: How do you drive a car with a trailer?

Cynthia writes:

We got in a new gizmo today: Yarn Buddies.

Yarn Buddies are beautiful. They're trimmed with Dupioni silk and the colors are rich. You get a choice of teal and purple. (Or both?) The barrel is clear so you can see your project and bask in the yarn.

You can clip your Yarn Buddy onto your belt loop, and it allows you to take your knitting or crocheting with you wherever you go.Which is important to me right now. I am on serious deadline. Stitches East is coming up in just over two weeks, and I have two sweaters to finish. They are both getting very close, but I still have three sleeves to knit before they are both finished. (Oh, and I have the pattern to write up for one of them, and probably sewing the pieces together will be useful too.) I really should finish a shawl, which is not even close to done.

So I'm feeling a bit stressed right now. Unlike the mythology about owning a yarn store and getting to knit all day, I rarely have time to knit at work. And I'm kind of a slow knitter. And I don't push my body to knit when it hurts. (I am a great believer in that old adage, "No pain, no pain.")

So I am going to carry my Yarn Buddy with me wherever I go. A little here, a little there, and I hope all those sleeves will get done.

The shawl? Well....
I figure that if I hang it up with the needles still in it, every knitter who walks by our booth will understand. (Pattern: The Leaf Lace Shawl by Fibertrends. Fiber: Ultra Alpaca by Berroco.)

Fall is in full swing. We are busy helping people teaching lots of classes. In the fall, we have a lot of new people in town, so we get lots of phone calls asking us where our store is and how to get there. We start seeing people that we haven't seen over the summer. People are ready to come indoors now, and start projects.

We ourselves, along with all this delightful hubub, are getting ready for going to Stitches East. We are going to be vendors there from November 2-5. (In answer to the ever-present question, the store stays open, thanks to Amy and Kirsten and Mom. We never close.)

We've done Stitches twice before. Each time we do it, we learn a little more and we grow a bit. This year, we have a double booth. Instead of renting a truck, Cynthia has invested in a trailer hitch for her CR-V, and Deb and Kyle are loaning us their 8-foot trailer. (At least we hope it's 8 feet--that's the height of our new gridwall fixtures.)

We have had several planning meetings, with another one coming up this week. So keep reading. As time goes on, we're sure we'll tell you what we're doing, and what Stitches was like. We're a little nervous, in a way. The crowds are record-breaking this year. If you're in Baltimore in early November, stop by to see the party!