New with Knitscene: Dogs, lace shawls, and birthday parties

It’s been a while since I posted and, in that lapse, so much has happened: The holidays. TNNA’s tradeshow in California. The Winter/spring Knitscene preview went live and now people are scooping up copies all over the place. My birthday, for which my friends threw a big surprise party at this wacky place that I love. I got the advance copy of my new book Knitting Plus. And, perhaps biggest for me and my family, I got a dog—Chile the Dachshund mix! She really likes reviewing submissions and prefers wool over all; check out her new superwash tunic. It’s been a good and busy 2011 so far!

Whenever a new issue of Knitscene comes out, I tend to lurk for a while, watching threads in the forums here and on Ravelry; tracking blog posts, and checking in with my LYS to see how the issue is doing there. One of the best comments, for me anyway, is the kind that goes like this: “I’m not a young thing, but I love these projects and would make them for myself.” For the past few issues, I’ve noticed quite a few posts like this on public forums—I see such feedback as a kind of affirmation. We choose to package the content in a certain way, but the Knitscene style is never meant to render the designs themselves inaccessible. At the heart of it, we just want to print good knitting!

Photography in a knitting magazine is part fantasy, part technical blueprint. You want the dream of the sweater, in a place and on a person with a certain look, but you want to see the garment, follow each stitch with your eyes, and be able to determine if it’s the project for you. And your style could be completely different from Knitscene’s. And that’s awesome.

I hope you enjoy this new issue and find something that is for you within its pages. Chile is particularly fond of the Magnanimity Cardi, probably because it offers such ample storage for treats.

TNNA find: new yarn company Alisha Goes Around gave me some sample skeins to play with and I’ve been freeform-designing a top-down shawl in this glorious peacock color.