They Like Me! They Really Like Me!

Back in May, the mother of Sam, one of my models for the book, bought copies of the book for her mother and mother-in-law. Today, I ran into her mother, a knitter, who proceeded to tell me how many things she's made from the book (three) and how much she enjoyed making them and how great they turned out. Wow. A fan.

Hearing from customers really makes my day. Since my business is online, I work in a vacuum much of the time, sending patterns out over the ether, sending kits in the mail. From time to time, I'll get an email from a happy customer (I guess it means something that I've never gotten an annoyed email, knock wood!), and it does validate what I'm doing (and trying to do) here.

So, if you were to buy this book, you, too, would be knitting up cute baby things and enjoying the patterns.

Speaking of validation, I had a blanket pattern accepted for the Spring issue of Knotions (and sincerely hope that I haven't jinxed anything by mentioning it this much in advance). I may not be another Debbie Bliss, but I am the only Erika Flory.

Love & Stitches

I love knitting so much.

August???

So, what happened to August? One day it was July, and now, presto! it's September. Seems to happen that way every year. And I managed to go a whole month without posting anything. I guess I need to offer apologies to my vast audience of readers who have been begging for information.

I've been knitting: finished a couple of designs that I sent to Knitty and Knotions. I don't want to be overconfident (good WASP that I am), but I think they're both pretty good. I also finished a little feather and fan cardigan (need to get some photos of it) in Knit One Crochet Too's Ty-Dy--a really soft cotton in beautiful colors. And I'm doing work again for StellaPop, both pattern writing and now production knitting. I'm also working on a little cardigan for my niece's birthday which is coming up soon.

Two more weeks, and knitting class at ASB begins. I've found a home for the blankets that our clients made a year and a half ago, supposedly for a local hospital's cancer center. But the PR departments never seemed to have gotten it together for the formal donation (even though the hospital suggested that we make the blankets). So I found our local chapter of Project Linus and have been taking the blankets there where they have been received very nicely. This year begins our fourth year teaching at ASB. We've done a lot in that time.

And I've gotten somewhat involved in politics. Yes, politics. I'm volunteering in the Obama office once a week, doing data entry. Has the potential to be stultifyingly boring, but it actually has an interesting angle: I get to see how registered Democrats are responding to Obama. Most people aren't home when they're called, some people are "for Obama", some are "undecided", some are "for McCain" (which I don't understand at all).




I believe in Obama. I think he has a lot to offer this country, and I think we'll be in a better place four years from now if we trust in him. McCain scares me because of his policies, because he's too old to be taking this on, because his judgement is skewed. His selection of Sarah Palin was too quick with too little thought, and that scares me: that he can make such important decisions with such little information (or such disregard for the information available). It seems that his eagerness to have a woman as his VP nominee (any woman) over-rode the need for experience: I'm sorry, but living in Alaska does not make one an expert on foreign policy; if physical proximity to another country counts in that area, then all the bubbes from Boca to Miami should be consulted on Cuba. And politics aside, when McCain and Palin appear in public together, he looks a bit like a pedophile.

And I'm not even getting started on her eagerness to be in the national spotlight vs the ramifications of having her family under the national magnifying glass. Just last week, her daughter was a pretty anonymous teenager who was dealing with her pregnancy with her family and friends, and now she's the object of international commentary and innuendo. There's no way that I would do that to my daugher. Period. I don't care what fame and/or fortune is involved. So I have doubts about her experience and her judgement.

The Irish bookmakers have it at 13% odds that she'll withdraw from the race.