Three years ago Bob (my husband) and I came home and fell into our usual routine. I checked phone messages while he sorted and opened the mail. There was a message from my sister with a shaky voice saying she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. As we listened to the message and it began to sink in, Bob opened a note to me reminding me that I was due for my yearly mammogram! How’s that for motivation!?
My sister has had a rough three years but she is now cancer free. Yesterday she called to tell me that she had shot her best golf score EVER!!
Before “Sissy” was diagnosed I had participated in our local Susan G. Komen Walk/Race for the Cure regularly. I would meet up with a group of women from work at a MAX (city train service) station and ride …

I have three pieces of news for you to cram into this one blog post, so stop and stretch first and take a deep cleansing breath. Ready? Here we go:
1. The winner of the final contest in the “Give One Away” Knit Along is “soonerknitter.” You can read her story about giving her tote to her Grandmother here .
Congratulations SoonerKnitter. She will receive our final organic basket that includes Knit Picks yarn and needles.
2. The Montavilla Tote Kits have sold out. They are all gone. That’s the bad news. The good news is, the pattern will be available in the “patterns” section of our website on August 15. It includes the yarn requirements, so you’ll be able to continue making the world a little greener one tote at a time.
3. And just a final little tidbit about the Tote. We polled you guys to ask what you would put in …

I feel like I’m back in high school! I used to make up schedules, breaking out big projects into manageable pieces and then check my progress against those small goals. I have to admit that Check-In Tuesdays had the effect of a weekly quiz. Sunday morning I realized that I needed to get going or I would be in a lot of trouble on Tuesday! 🙂
Not that I didn’t want to work on my cardigan. It’s just that the days seem to slip by so quickly. I loved having the reminder to slow down and take some time out for a nice long knitting session. I smiled, set up my Kindle and knit all day Sunday! And, knit more on Monday, etc.
Look at my progress!! I had 7″ last Tuesday. Today I have 13″ and my final goal is 19″. You can see the …

That subject line for this blog post may make it sound more interesting than it really is, but anyway…
Angela and I are going to be co-leading a “Gift” Knit Along to help everyone get through their holiday gift giving knitting.
I have already started mine and finished a couple of projects as shown in the couple of photos above. They are two kitchen towels and a sushi (spicy tuna roll to be exact) toilet paper cozy for my little brother and his new wife.
I may sound cool because I’ve started my holiday knitting, but I look downright lame next to a couple people in our office who are DONE with their gift knitting. You’ll meet them in the Knit Along and can admire and hate them–oops, sorry, I mean admire and be inspired by them. …

It seems like a million years ago, but I once thought that I was going to go into biological research. I got a BA in biology, worked on a prairie restoration project, was a student worker in the biology department, and did other science-y things. Instead of going on to grad school for biology, I freaked out my parents and went into a program that turns scientists into filmmakers. A few weird turns later, and I’m working for Knit Picks!
All of this is just me trying to explain why I wanted a test tube rack for my needle tips – I am a huge, unrepentant nerd.

I used a company out of New Zealand, Ponoko, to make a prototype of what I wanted. It’s a pretty slick service – you draw up your plans, put them into a template, …

We did a quick video of Angela, Nina, and Brett trying out the new Zephyr needles (with a brief cameo by Melissa). They’re all such good sports!
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See, here I am helping Kate at work.

We were setting up the new sock KAL . It’s really fun, you can get free patterns and show off the socks you’ve knit. And there are lots of knitters who’ve made many, many pairs of socks in the KAL, so if you run into trouble, there’s probably someone who can help. I don’t wear socks, but if I did, I’d join.
I’m also helping Mom with a special project she’s working on for Knitters for Knockers PDX. See all that pink yarn? She obviously needed my expert opinion to help her narrow it down to just one or two favorites.

It would be even harder to pick just one now that we introduced all the new fall colors! Did you see all the new colors in Palette? There are 7 new pinks!! …