It’s Publication Day! Finally! I thought it would never get here.

All of the patterns from the book are entered in Ravelry (thanks, Aimee!) so feel free to queue ‘em up, should you so desire.

I celebrated publication day by leaving the office at noon and going to the doctor so that he could commit atrocities on my spine. I do know how to live . . .

The real fun starts this weekend. On Friday I am heading up to Philadelphia to Loop. There’ll be a book signing Friday night from 5 – 7 pm, so please stop by if you are in the area. and I’m teaching a couple of classes — details are all here. Contact Loop about class info.

I got myself a publication day present:

And finished the first half of my stole:

Lucy sez:

“It’s just a dumb book. what’s the big deal?”

I’m almost to the halfway point on the To-Be-Named Stole:

This photo was taken yesterday, so it’s a bit further along than it appears here. But yesterday was nice and sunny and today is dark and gloomy, so you get an old photo.

Okay, this has nothing to do with anything, but it is the epitome of awesome . . .

Have you ever heard of the Fasta Pasta cooker?

The link takes you to the thing on Amazon.com. I bought one in January 2009 and I use it all the time. It’s a microwave pasta cooker and if you are making just a couple of servings of pasta it is the greatest thing in the world. It beats boiling several quarts of water and then having to clean the pot. It’s made out of heavy plastic and is much easier to clean than a big ol’ pot.

If you go to the Fasta Pasta website, you will find a page with pdfs of cooking charts — times for all sorts of different things you can cook in it. It never occurred to me to visit the website until this past weekend and I found the veggies and rice cooking chart. It hadn’t occurred to me that I could cook rice and veggies in this.

I sound like an infomercial, don’t I?

Lucy has lost interest.

I finally managed to do the photo-shoot for the pattern for the Chevron Shawlette and Stole. The pattern is now available for sale in my Ravelry store, here.

Complete patterns with charts for both the shawlette and the stole are included, for one low price of $5.00. Such a deal, eh? It’s a two-fer!

Oh yeah.

This yarn is totally yummy. So very soft and delightfully non-splitty. I’m really liking the colorway (Topaz) as well. It’s got enough variegation to keep it interesting, but not so much that it obscures the lace pattern. Here’s last night’s progress:

I am now on the “body” portion of the pattern, so expect a lot of photos of this stole over the next couple of weeks, all looking very much the same, only incrementally larger.

In the interests of full disclosure, I steamed the edge with the trusty Rowenta steam iron before I took yesterday’s blog photo. I plan on steam-blocking this shawl anyhow. It’s a more “solid” lace than the last few things I’ve been working on so it doesn’t need to be blocked within an inch of its life.

About kitchener versus three-needle bind-off. Well, yeah, I will offer both as options in the pattern. Not like you wouldn’t do what you wanted to anyhow, now would you?

About teaching/book-signing events:

It is very gratifying that so many of you would like me to come to your part of the country (or world) — I so appreciate it!

Here’s how it works — LYSs contact me (or preferably they contact my event planner Aimee — look over in the left sidebar for contact info) to schedule events. So I go where I am asked to go. It is very gratifying that more places than I have time to go to have asked me to visit. (Okay, that sentence could use some work, but I’m tired.) We do our best to be fair when picking where I’ll go from among those LYSs who have invited me.

And I’m doing less traveling than last year. My schedule last year just about killed me — traveling every other weekend while working a full-time job is very, very tiring. At least it is for me. And since I’ve had a flare-up of my ongoing chronic back issues, I need to cut back.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I’m pretty much booked up for 2010.  I think there are a couple of things that are not yet set in stone but we’ve made verbal agreements at this point. If something falls through, we contact someone else who was interested in having me come out. As soon as stuff is confirmed and set in stone, it will go on the travel and teaching page. We won’t start scheduling 2011 until late in 2010.

I am going to some of the same places as last year, but some new places as well, in different areas, so that’ll be fun.

Lucy sez:

“Personally, I think you are nuts. I’d much rather stay home.”

I started knitting with the lovely Serenity 20 yarn that I showed you in yesterday’s blog post. It’s like knitting whipped cream.

Yes, I know I titled this post “Like Buttah” when the experience is really “Like Whipped Cream.” I have mislead you. Deliberately. Why? Just because I am that way. (I’m getting quite snippy about my blog post titles, aren’t I?)

Anyhow, here is the start of a new stole:

The way this baby is going together is that I will knit it in two pieces (this being the border at one end of the first piece) and then attach those two pieces together at the center.

You know what that means, don’t you?

(Insert ominous music here)

Kitchener stitch.

Though in all likelihood I will do a three-needle bind-off when I get to that point in the shawl. I can picture it now: I’ll finish the second piece, it’ll be late at night, I’ll be tired and impatient (so what else is new?) so I’ll say “screw the kitchener” and do the three-needle bind-off.

But when I write up the pattern I’ll tell you to kitchener it. It doesn’t really seem fair, does it?

Coming Soon to a Venue Near You

A week from Friday is the start of my travel in support of Toe-Up Socks for Every Body, which comes out on Tuesday the 23rd. Not that I’m counting the days or anything.

My first trip is to Loop in Philadelphia. I’ll be there Friday and Saturday, March 26 and 27. Check their website here for details on classes and book-signing.

And the next Friday, April 2, I’ll be in my hometown, Alexandria, VA, at fibre space for a Book Premiere Party and book signing. Check their site here for the details. Note that you can contact them starting today to reserve a book should you wish to do so.

As always, my travel schedule is posted on my Travel and Teaching page which you can always get to via the menu tab at the top of this page. There is not a whole lot there yet, but we’ve got lots of events planned, so keep checking back. final arrangements have not yet been made for most of my travel and I don’t post until that has been done.

Lucy has once again elected to stay home with her Daddy while I am on the road.

She is one smart kitty.