Rachael

Whew! That was soooo fun! My little book tour is over, and I had the best time last night at Bookshop West Portal. PEOPLE CAME! Lovely, fun, wonderful people, and I soon as I saw that they were there, instead of relaxing, I got even MORE nervous, because wouldn't you want to impress a crowd like this?

My sister Bethany is making a face, so it's her own fault it gets posted like this–this cracked me UP. (Also, the Herrons, especially sister C, are MASTERS of the crazy-photo face).

I was beyond excited. Bookshop West Portal is where I gave my first reading, and it remains my favorite, because it always becomes a party. I bring wine and cookies, people nosh and gab and hang out and hug and I LOVE IT. It would do to remember this when I spend a whole afternoon sick with dread that no one will come.

(Apropos of nothing, if you find it hard to read the font on this new page, don't forget for all webpages you can hit Ctrl+ to make the font bigger, or on a Mac, Command+.)

So this: I hope you will read either/both of my new books. I will stop pushing them now, because really, I'm more comfortable pushing other books, and LOOK! Here's one now!

LISA BOGART

She has a new book out, Knit With Love, and she's DARLING, with the biggest grin you've ever seen. I got the chance to ask her a few questions about her book.

1. Out of everything you've ever knitted, what's your favorite, and why? (I know it's like asking a reader what her favorite book is, but give it a shot.)
    Gee, you start with the tough questions. This is going to take some thought. (Insert dramatic pause.) Okay. I’ve got it.
    When I was pregnant with my son I went through a nesting fit like most moms do. At the time I worked in a little needlework shop that featured needlepoint and knitting. There was a great knit group meeting on Tuesday mornings but I never joined in, I was a needlepointer then. I had stitched my baby-to-be a lovely needlepoint sampler and was just waiting for the name and date to finish it. But what I really wanted was something I could actually use when the baby was born. Barbara came to my rescue.
    Barbara was the knit guru of the Tuesday morning group. She insisted that I could knit a sweater for my baby. I hadn’t knit in years, in fact I had to be reminded how to cast on. But Barbara helped me pick out a pattern for a tiny cardigan. Then she patiently helped me with each phase of the sweater. I was so surprised as the little sweater grew on my needles. The how-to of knitting was still within me. It was exciting to have this skill reborn just as my son was about to be born.
    I finished the tiny cardigan. It’s (one of) my favorite knitted objects. I look at it and remember how scared I was to change colors, to set in the sleeves, and to make the buttonholes. I still marvel that it turned out so well. (It took me years before I knit myself an adult size sweater.) I love his little sweater. It reminds me of how knitting returned to my life, of my friend Barbara and of when my son was tiny. It also reminds me to be brave in my knitting, to take on a challenge.

2. What gave you the idea for your collection of essays?
    I had read Betty Christiansen’s book Knitting for Peace and I was fascinated by all stories behind different knitting charities. I started out looking for local stories like that. What I found were a lot of knitters very passionate about their craft. Not everyone knits for charity but it seems that every knitter has a big heart and is willing to share her time and wool with the world in some way. The stories that emerged were a collection of knitters caring for each other in so many many ways. It’s my hope that these tales will help knitters celebrate their joy in the craft as well as inspire them to share their labors with others, in whatever form that takes. And some of the stories were just too fun not to pass on.

3. What's your favorite kind of fiber?
    I like the fiber of the moment. I am more frequently drawn to the color of yarn than the fiber content. I love Pagewood Farms Denali, a cashmere sock yarn. Decadent. But this summer I knit a sweater and a skirt from cotton and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Cotton has this reputation for being difficult, stretching out and not having any give. And while those things can be true I had success knitting with it. My fiber of the moment right now is alpaca. I’m making an afghan for my son. He’s a freshman at Boston University and my California boy needs some warmth. I’m using Drops Alpaca in 15 different colors, my idea of fiber color bliss.

4. How long have you been writing?
    I’m one of those girls who wrote angst filled poetry as a teen. I kept journals and poured out every minute thought on the page. But just as my knitting was reborn with my son, so was my writing.
We lived a time zone away from family when my son was born. And I longed for the grandmas, aunts and uncles to see him grow up, but geography was keeping us apart. So I started writing down all the little things that were going on in our world. I documented his first steps. I wrote about his adorable adventures in the park. I told them all the silly things that happened. This was in the days before we were all connected online so I actually sent letters to all my relatives. The first seven years of my son’s life are chronicled in detail. (He’ll die someday when I show a girlfriend or fiancée. teehee.)

Giveaway:

In exciting news, Lisa's publisher has let me have FIVE of these books to give away, so leave a comment to enter.

(And now I'm off to my dad's luau wedding. Looking forward to the festivities! Aloha!)

And the first!

This is the final stop on my little book tour, but it's the actual official first reading for Wishes & Stitches. I love Bookshop West Portal, and they've been so kind to me, and I'd love you to come on Thursday night at 7pm if you're local. I'll bring wine and a gift or two to give away.

Bookshop West Portal
80 West Portal, San Francisco, CA
October 20th, 7pm

Then I'll be done telling you how nervous I get about these things and how I have dreams that I will show up with various important parts of my clothing missing and/or in disarray. (I've dreamed I've showed up in an ACRYLIC STOREBOUGHT SWEATER. Can you imagine? I'll give every person who attends ten dollars if that ever happens. I swear.)

Project 333: I'm thinking about doing it. I know people who have (I'm looking at you, PoMoGolightly), and have loved it.

It goes like this: You clean out your closet, trashing the trashed clothes, donating the ones that don't fit you or your style, keeping only the things that you LOVE. From those, you winnow them down into 33 things (including shoes, purse, jewelry) to wear for the next three months. Three months later, you can reevaluate, going through your LOVE box, pulling out, tossing, putting away.

In this, I wouldn't (couldn't) include my uniform clothes, and you also don't include things like underwear, sleepwear, workout clothes. As a Knitter, I will aslo exclude knitted items that I have no intention of getting rid of, which will open it up a bit. (I make the rules! Yes, I do!) What you're looking at is your everyday wardrobe. Wouldn't it be freeing to have limited choices, all of which you love? My closet is impossibly small (I mean TINY) and I'm constantly irritated by how much I have to fight to keep the clothes corralled.

Oooh, I like this article on Living in the Land of Enough – Space.

This could be interesting. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I'm off to the store to buy jeans that fit, because I've been complaining about my one pair of jeans for EONS (they're too big, have always been too big, and I hate wearing them, but wear them I do). 

Also: Just got a very nice review in the New York Journal of Books -  "Wishes and Stitches delivers a heroine with enough issues to be convincingly difficult to love, a hero who’s immensely likeable, several steamy love scenes, and a comfortably familiar small town setting. All in all, a pleasant read for a fall afternoon."

I like that the reviewer found Naomi difficult to love. That was the trickiest part of writing her, and this is my prediction: extroverted people (Jasmin!) will find her difficult to understand and shy people (Gigi!) will empathize with her problems. Tell me what you think!

It’s here!

It’s my new book! The third novel in the Cypress Hollow Yarn series!

And honestly, as I just admitted in my newsletter (go HERE to sign up in case you’re not on the list), I love it best of all my novels (I know I’m not supposed to admit that, but I can’t help it. It’s just true). It’s about what happens when a misunderstood shy doctor (Naomi) meets a guy with true bedside manner (Rig).

You’ll get to see Cade and Abigail again, as well as Lucy and Owen. Eliza has a few words of wisdom, and I’m happy to say Toots walks through again, too.

But if you haven’t read the previous two books, this is a great spot from which to jump into Cypress Hollow. I hope you enjoy it — I sure loved writing it.

I miss it. I miss all my books when I’m done, but I really miss this one.

Available at your favorite indie bookseller and here:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Powells
Indiebound

There’s a little excerpt over here, too, iffen you’re interested. Enjoy. And let me know what you think.

*  Edited to add: The audiobook of Wishes & Stitches is out today, too! Yay! Link here.

 
Larch Knitalong!

 Also, in fun news, we’re doing a Larch cardie knitalong, courtesy of the lovely KnittedWit — here’s a Ravelry link to the pattern, and here is where her gorgeous yarn is (click on the size, and then there are pictures of the different colors, or more color pics here — I’m doing mine in Naomi green). Ravely group here.

You know what I love about Books, Inc. in Alameda?

1. It's in Alameda, a city I worked in/for a LOT of years.I know all the streets. I know many stories of many things that have happened there and can drive around and recite facts that are interesting to probably no one but me.

2. It's big and bright and carries really good books.

3. The very, very, very first time I ever saw my first book in a Real Live Bookstore, it was there. The PensFatales and I had gone out book hunting and I never actually thought there would be a copy there, but there it was! Really, truly on the shelf!

4. I'll be reading and signing there this Sunday! I promise to be funny. Or at least funny-looking. Please come if you can — 6pm. (PSSST – I'll have one or two ARCs of the next book, Wishes & Stitches, which, if you won one, you could read two days early!)

My sister Bethany and I are committing to the insanity that is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). We're going to write another novel in the moth of November. We'll head full tilt down that crazy hill and not stop till we get to the bottom, even if we trip and fall and roll the last few feet.

The best thing about NaNo? You write a novel in a month. 1667 words a day, that's all! (Usually I like to write 2k/day so I have a little cushion on the days I cannot get it together. This year I'll try to write 4k/day because I'm completely insane.)

The worst thing about NaNo? You write a novel in a month. All the words in your head come out your fingertips and hit the keyboard, and you know what's left over for talking to other people? Nothing. Your wife says, "What do you want for dinner?" and you say, "Are you tapas bar? Cry on leftist bank of saints and inchworms! Jessh!"

It can be (well) argued that 50,000 words does not an entire novel make. That's true. Most YA novels are bigger than that nowadays. You know what I say to that argument? Write the WHOLE book then! (Watch the arguer backpedal: No, no, 50,000 is a lot of words, I'll be fine with that….) Me, I'm going to try to write a whole book. All 100,000 words. Stop it. I am. (Eeek!)

Um. I suppose I should come up with a plot. Soon. (You can preplan, but not prewrite.) Sigh. Can I borrow one from somebody? (I'm just kidding. YOU write your story! Do it! Do it! I wanna hear about THAT!)

So I'm committing to raising money for the Night of Writing Dangerously, NaNoWriMo's fundraiser for their Young Writers Program (more than 2000 classrooms will be writing along in November for NaNo!). Usually it's Bethany's pledge page and then she lets me tag along, but this year, I beat her to the punch! But she'll be my guest if we raise $350.

Bethany and I both want to say this, humbly:

Dear Fairy Godmother, We know the economy is hard and even though you've sent us to this for the last few years, you do NOT HAVE TO send us again. Really. We love you, no matter what!

Everyone else, We know the economy is hard and even $5 makes a difference to this program. It's something we really, really, really believe in. Words are magic, and they are giving the gift of the belief in words to kids. That's amazing.

CLICK ON CHRIS BATY TO DONATE —>

*Edited to add:
CARTWHEELS. She did it again. Writes our darling FG: Dear Rachael and Bethany, It wouldn't be Nanowrimo if I didn't know you were at the Night of Writing Dangerously. Have a great time! Your Fairy Godmother

We are so happy and so grateful. We will make you proud.