No time to have that special talk with your daughter? Do the birds and the bees leave you weak in the knees? Then say it with yarn! Teach your darling girl all about her burgeoning womanhood with the Burgeoning Womanhoodie! Fun ovaries on the front pocket will teach her everything she needs to know.

Act now to get our patented cramp-inducing acrylic yarn and snapping mousetrap pocket inserts. Boys with flowers won’t stand a chance!

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So, I was perusing the internets as I often do and I discovered something rather interesting. I looked at my book on Amazon (because, well, it never ceases to amaze and amuse me that I can) and check it out! If you pre-ordered it expecting it on the official pub date of September 1st, you’re in for a treat. Looks like they’ve arrived on the slow boat from China (seriously) and are actually being shipped! The official pub date is still September 1st, so the tour and publicity will start then, but I guess since they’ve arrived and I ain’t J.K. Rowling, there’s no sense in taking up all that room in the warehouse.

So, if you pre-ordered one, leave me a comment when you get it. I’m curious to see when they actually became available. Have people already gotten it, or did they just change it this weekend? If you’ve gotten in, dare I ask – whaddaya think?

I got the original tote bag and tie that Marnie designed for the book, so I’ll be posting pictures of that as soon as I can find the camera. It’s the classic example of good designer gone bad and I almost feel guilty for asking her to make it. But even her version of tacky is kinda cute.

I’m hoping to be able to link to the official page on Quirk’s website soon, too. But until then, take a look at this book called The Art of Justice. I always hoped something like this would come along, I love courtroom drawings. I think it’s a totally underappreciated art form. They always capture so much in a single frame. It came out in April and I meant to mention it earlier, but I totally forgot. When I went to Quirk’s office in Philly, they had all their books‚ on shelves all over the place‚ and it was very distracting. They have so much good stuff, but this one totally knocked my store-bought socks off. So. Cool. Oh, and also, the Brick Testament is truly a thing to behold. Brilliant. I’m in very good company. They also have an amazing pop-up book of Graceland coming out. Hopefully their page will be ready soon. And rumor has it that the lovely and talented Eunny is working on a stitch dictionary with them. Yay!I amd so looking forward to it. I loves me a stitch dictionary, especially a Quirky one.

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OK, so much for trying to put together some kind of coherent post. I’m just going to toss out random stuff that I feel you should know:

One sock is almost done, I’m just debating about how long to make it. Since I did toe-up, I have this luxury. My calves are a bit on the tree-trunky side, so I usually prefer a shorter sock. And yet, I feel compelled to try to use all the yarn. I think I’ll make the socks short, then use the extra yarn to make some headbands to keep my hair back.

Thank you for all the reassuring comments about the book tour! It seems like we all agree that I should a.) Always travel with a posse who may or may not be in their underwear‚ and b.) Keep a thermos full of sangria with me at all times. Sounds like a plan. I’ve also been collecting some items to use as visual aids to make me appear more engaging. Oh man, wait until you see this stuff. I’m not going to post photos right away because that would kind of ruin the shocking reality that is the MOKS Trunk Show, but once the tour is over I will.

I got a couple of treats in the mail from Amazon today. Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks‚ and Vogue’s Ultimate Knitting Book. I gave them both a quick read through and I think they’re both going to be valuable resources. I think that as I get busier, I’m going to be relegated to socks for portability and ease (and because I have a whole bin of sock yarn), so I look forward to trying a few of the things Ms. Schurch has written down for all of us. And the Vogue Knitting book seems like an all around good source for the tricky things that I forget 10 seconds after I learn (like M1. Why do I always forget how to M1?) There’s also a stitch dictionary in there, and I’m a sucker for a stitch dictionary. Maybe I can incorporate some of it into socks!

Click this link, find the closest tour date to you and figure out a way to make it to a show. Grant Lee Phillips‚ is touring and you definitely need to do yourself a favor and see him. Fans of The Gilmore Girls may recognize him as the town troubadour, but he’s so much more than that. I actually occasionally tune into that show in the hopes he’ll be strolling by. He’ll be in Boston (well, Cambridge) on August 12th and oh my – North Hampton on the 13th. Webs AND Grant Lee in one day. Could there BE anything better? I think not. I’m definitely going on the 12th and don’t see how I could possibly avoid the 13th. Sometimes shows sell out, so it’s a good idea to get tickets ahead of time. You can listen to some music‚ on his site and you can also just trust me on this one. Charlene and I have seen him countless times and he never lets us down.

Another artist of note is Sarah Borges.‚ She was performing in one of the cocktail lounges at Symphony Hall a couple of weeks ago. Aimee Mann‚ was doing a show with the Boston Pops, and she (Aimee)‚ was brilliant as always. Sarah Borges is a new favorite since that night. I defy you to listen to the song Daniel Lee‚ only once. You can’t. You may think you can, but a few minutes later, you’ll need to hear it again. And again. And again.

I just realized that most of the photos I migrated over from the other blog aren’t working. Oh man, I do not look forward to fixing all of that up. I hope it’s just a glitch and will be magically fine tomorrow.

Errrrm . . . is that it? Well, since I don’t really have any knitting pictures to show you, I’ll resort to the blogger classic cat pictures.

Here is His Royal Highness, Mike. He’s the King of Trouble-Makin’ Mama’s Boys. He can’t wait for his latest loyal subject, Sir Blu of the Seaside,‚ to start walking. You can make more trouble that way, then you can run to your mama about it.

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Hee hee, look at those scary fangs! Click the picture for an extreme close-up of the ferocious‚ Dot.‚ rarrrrr

If these sleeveless sweaters (they’re NOT vests, dammit!) and their models aren’t sealed in a time capsule somewhere, they should be. They’re pretty much the embodiment of the free-wheelin’ 1970s. You’ve get yer diverse collection of bell-bottomed and go-go-booted citizens donning cultural icons like the Smiley Face, the Crazy Daisy, and the Rainbow Sternum. Their classic Sears Catalog posturing harkens back to a simpler time in our history. Goofy but cheerful, just like the 70s themselves, yes?

Uhh, no. The 70’s was not all smiles and flowers and technicolor ribs. There were Pilgrim-confused individuals with an Isaac Newton fetish, gals involved in lurid affairs with 50-foot women who left gaudy lipstick stains everywhere, and diamond-encrusted hunks stuffed into chunky corduroys.

In fact, let’s take a look at these crotch-poppers. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the finest example of the male camel toe we’ve ever see, affectionately known as . . . wait for it . . .

The Mooseknuckle!!!

It’s gonna get a little weird inside that time capsule.

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Are you ready to rock?

~tap tap~

Is this thing on?

So the book tour is officially on and the first date as been booked. It’s at the Barnes‚ and Noble in Paramus, NJ on October 18th, just a few days before Rhinebeck. Since I’ll be in the vicinity of the neighborhood, I may as well swing by the fairgrounds with my mortgage payment. I’m starting to really accept this whole book thing as more than a figment of my overactive imagination. And the concept of book signings is no longer some faraway idea that I keep in the back of my mind as something I should really do something about at some point. That point is here. Yikes!

More dates will be added, but I just love that Paramus is the first one booked. It’s so rock n’ roll. But since I can’t sing, play an instrument, or wiggle my hips in any particularly intriguing fashion, I’m going to call it “mock n’ roll”. I’m a Mock Star, baby! Now I just have to get over my crushing fear of speaking in front of more than say, two people, and everything will be dandy. And of course, that’s a whole other fear. What if less than two people show up at every appearance? I guess it would reduce the event to a pleasant conversation, which I’m simply smashing at! I wish I could convey to you just how daunting a task it will be for me to stand up in front of a bunch of eyeballs looking at me, expecting me to make with the funny.

I do okay in groups when I’m kind of mixed in there (and I have a tumbler of sangria in my hand), but when I’m in what boils down to a classroom-type situation, well, there’s the sweating and stumbling over words. And the fidgeting combined with bursts of demented nervous laughter. And the very real possibility that I will draw a complete blank and just start making stuff up until I’m just a puddle of a girl. I could very well have a positively goofy Jan Brady moment where I just run out of the room, my hair swinging awkwardly behind me. It’s happened at every oral report I’ve had to do in school. I abandoned my science fair project in 8th grade because in the end, I had no idea what the difference was between a human and ape brain. One was bigger, but damned if I could remember which. I almost entered a catatonic state when I had to address a room full of co-workers to explain to them how to do my job. I could feel my face changing from one dazzling shade of red to another and the rest is a blur. In the end, I’m pretty sure they all thought I didn’t really do anything, and that maybe I was there because that’s just where the short bus happened to drop me off every morning.

So yeah, look out for that. I’ll keep everyone updated as more dates get added. Once there are a few, I’ll put up a page to track them. I’m not really sure how far-reaching it will be, I guess it depends on the turnout and all of that. It’ll probably stick to the East Coast, but who knows.

And lest you think that I’ve abandoned knitting altogether, here are some WIPs started in a bout with start-itis. Jon’s brown sweater was giving me the blahs, so I decided I needed some color.

The first is the mini skull tote from Hello Yarn. I’m using Lamb’s Pride Worsted and really liking it. I’ve never using it before and it’s both scratchy and soft at the same time. Weird. It’s the second time I’ve really tried to do two-stranded colorwork and I’m pretty awkward with it. My saving grace is that it’s going to be felted. I’m not going to show you the back because frankly, I’m kind of embarrassed. It looks like the scene of a gruesome reconstructive surgery back there. I forgot to twist the two colors together when switching a few times, and I carried yarn way too far, so there are all kinds of funky things going on back there. Maybe I’ll show it right before I felt it. I’m definitely getting the hang of it, but I just don’t think I’m organized enough to handle all these little mini-balls of yarn.

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And here is a sock I started while we spent the weekend in Maine at my friend’s log cabin on Mooselookmeguntic Lake. Yeah, I had to look up that name. Don’t ask me to spell it without looking. Or even with looking. It’s beautiful up there and we relaxed mightily. I even did a little fishing, which is always a big emotional roller coaster for me. When I was little, I loved going with my dad, but I think it was just because I wanted to spend time with him. I never did the worm or took my own fish off the hook, and whenever I did end up catching something, I’d feel instant remorse and start crying. It must have been a real pleasure for him, trapped out in the middle of nowhere with a squirming fish in one hand and a‚ little‚ crying girl by his side. Dad, maybe you should have just stuck to taking me golfing with you so I could ride around on the cart and hang at the 19th hole with you and your buddies. Heh, what a buzzkill that must have been, eh? I owe you a beer for that one. Anyway, my friend Victor did my worms and dehooking, and I did nearly cry the very instant I caught a little fish. But I just love the middle part of fishing so much, I was really torn about the whole thing. Luckily, I got more nibbles than actual bites, so we surmised that we were just taking a very elaborate approach to serving worms to all the fish in the lake. If there were a way to just lower a little chair for the fish to sit on so I could lift them up to say hello and let them on their merry way, it would be a lot better.

Anyway, the sock. It’s Lorna’s Laces “Funky Stripe”, using size 2 dpns, which I can now fully and properly control. Yay me! I actually started at the cuff and made a few inches progress, but when I got home, I ripped it out and started making it a toe-up using Wendy’s pattern. I like the idea of just knitting the leg until the yarn runs out rather than having to guess how long to make it.

Jon’s Olympic Sweater parts are done and just need to be attached, so I’m waiting for the finish-itis to hit. Aaaany time now. ~whistles tunelessly~