My goodness it is HOT!  Today was 93, tomorrow 97, Saturday 100+.  Plus it’s humid.  I find myself envying Dylan, who is currently in Tucson, AZ,  looking for an apartment.  We lived for 6 years in Arizona–both our boys were born there.  Even at 118, it never felt as hot as this……

On the other side of the globe, for some reason we have had what amounts to an absolute flood of orders from Down Under– mostly Australia but also NZ and South America.  Yes I know it’s winter there, but compared to previous  July to Sept seasons there are many, many more orders.  So what’s up?  if any of you know, please let us know too.  An Aussie blog?  Advertising?  What??????

Our last newsletter proved that what Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the Yarn Harlot) has said all along….It’s impossible to predict what knitters/crocheters will want; at least it isn’t predictable enough to help plan what should be bought for the store.  We’ve re-ordered the Wraps Per Inch kit, and I never thought that would be necessary after one day.  On the other side, I would have sworn that the Knit Kards would have sold like hotcakes, but no.  I guess that means that my description is not very good.  I’ll have to re-work that……

Sadie was so cute today.  She’s taken to sitting out on the driveway & staring at the street, for all the world like a cat cartoon.  It almost makes me forget the dead mole I found in the kitchen this morning……

For the first time I’m actually feeling as if I’m really a pattern designer, because I had my first complaint about typos in a pattern.  I mean, if all the feedback you get is positive from people who love your patterns, do people really consider you professional?  It’s a higher standard–knitters expect a pattern to be perfect, and they have every right to expect that after paying for a pattern.  Intertwined with that (forgive the pun) is that I’m now having patterns available on other places besides the Handknitting.com website.  Ravelry & Patternfish to be specific.  It’s a bigger audience.  The pattern in question was even on YouTube as part of this June’s TNNA fashion show.

For the last year or so, I’ve been having a nagging feeling that there is about to be a growing interest in traditional knitting.  By “traditional knitting” what I mean is the traditional techniques from decades and centuries ago all over the world.  I could be wrong,  of course, but I can’t help but think that there’s a desire for tried and true, classic design out there.    This thought has been intruding for a while now, and it’s still under construction.

John asked me to provide an intro into his blogging, and so here it is.  John is, as you know, the Executive Vice President of Fulfillment and Customer Satisfaction for Handknitting.com.  In his spare time he has always enjoyed woodworking, and has recently taken on the building of a guitar.

Thanks for listening,

Laurel