I can’t resist these last 2 photos of Traverse City. Two guys with tubes heading for the water… and a sign on a shop downtown.

They take their cherries very seriously in Traverse City. Bringing Cherries to the World, indeed. Hey, you can’t buy passion, so follow it when it leads!

When Brian and I were at Blissfest music festival two weekends ago, they had a kids “parade” one day. They had hired a talent who made balloon hats, and the kids got their faces painted, and they went for a festive walk.

It was just adorable… how little can make kids so happy! As for me, the colors were certainly joyful!

Enjoy the photos.

Aaah. We were on the road 4 days last week and 4 days this week (we’d planned on 5 but came home half a day early). It was fun, but I missed home.

I am not very happy sleeping in a tent, but we do not want the hassle and cost of a trailer or RV. We are also committed to attending music festivals. That means, at least for now, it’s all about figuring out how to make a tent liveable.

We have a small Eureka tent that is great against rain. Also, when it’s really cold our body heat keeps it warm enough to sleep (last year we slept in it just above freezing temperatures, and we were warm enough).

We also love how easy our current tent is to put up. I can do it alone without any struggle, though Brian tends to be the one doing all the work.

However, we are considering perhaps a move to a tent just large enough to stand up in for changing clothes, maybe even some sort of portable bed. If anyone out there has any experience with this, I’d love to hear what you know.

We had a LOT of rain this week on the road, inches and inches on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. There was standing water after several of the storms. Fortunately, we could take shelter while the sky broke loose, and we did have more time without rain than with it; the storms were short but mean.

We got home after dark last night, and awoke to a perfect summer day. Such a treat!

So today is a little breezy, a lot sunny, and hot, but bearable (this is Michigan, not Arizona). My kind of day. While others are sitting around miserable, I am absolutely bursting with happy energy.

It was 90F/32C today when I looked this afternoon. I do complain all winter, but right now I am so delighted I can barely hold it in!

I worked in the garden for a while. The weeds are prolific this year, between good rain and sunny days. I can not keep up in the few days I’m home. I gave it the good old college try, anyway!

I made bubble/boba tea for myself. I make it just with tapioca flavored with brown sugar syrup, and black unflavored tea. No milk or “stuff,” just simple tea and fun large tapioca bubbles. Great summer entertainment.

Right now I am typing this on the porch, my absolute favorite place in Lansing. I’m in my Mexican hammock, watching my colorful hand wash dry in the breeze. I have the laptop out here, using wireless internet. There is perhaps not a better way to spend the day.

I hope you have a wonderful summer weekend, too!

We camped in the woods last weekend at BlissFest in northern lower Michigan (near Cross Village). We saw a lot of plants, tons of trillium especially, but I could not figure out this flower.

Everywhere it was, I could not see a leaf that could be attributed to it. Here I show it next to a small maple seedling, then next to a trillium plant (or several).

My friend Pete had me go look at the base of the stem. It thickens a lot right where it joins the ground, so we are thinking that maybe the leaves come up at a different place from the flower stalk.

My camera insisted on focusing on the ground rather than the flower itself. Can anyone tell what this is from the photos?

More Traverse City. Makes you want to visit, doesn’t it?

On Saturday last week we found ourselves accidentally smack dab in the middle of the National Cherry Festival. We got there as the parade was starting. I was a bit distracted by a deadline (we went to the city to use the post office) but it was easy to get a bunch of photos showing the festive atmosphere and fun parade acts.

This house was in Traverse City, Michigan when we passed by last week. There was another purple house about a block down, but it was on the wrong side of the road for me to get a photograph. Yes, I took the photo out the window and the car did not stop (though it was going slow).

I love to collect photos of purple houses. I haven’t shown you one here in a long while. Enjoy!

This window box was on a corner restaurant in downtown Traverse City (northern lower Michigan, USA). The city was very festive, it was just after the Saturday National Cherry Festival parade. It was a lovely time to be there, we ended up there at that time by total accident and it was wonderful.

We’ve been traveling. Despite the implication of vacation in the idea of “travel,” I also have deadlines. I’ve been knitting in the car and typing on the laptop in cafe’s. Not that I’m complaining…

It’s all good. Work deadlines in the summer, when one’s business is primarily focused on wool? This is a high-class problem if it’s a problem at all. And I see friends and family between knitting and typing, while on the road. That tempers the work very nicely.

Till I develop more photos, here’s one taken from the car “up north” on the way to the Traverse City area of northern lower Michigan. There are a good number of houses and barns built of rocks in this area. Lovely.

Sunday the Habibi Dancers took about a dozen women to dance at the Arab festival in Dearborn, Michigan. It was wonderful to spend a day together. We danced, we watched friends dance, we ate Lebanese food. That’s as perfect a day as one can have, if you ask me.

Here the Habibi dancers are, doing a Saudi women’s party dance. I’m in the hot pink dress at front.

Here are four of our dancers in a crowd-pleasing number (they clapped and sang along with us here):

Here is the Middle Eastern Dance Ensemble of the greater-Detroit area doing a scarf dance:

We had 22 of us at dinner between the two groups, friends and family. The restaurant had a good attitude about it at the end of what must have been a very busy weekend. And the food! There is such good mideastern food in Dearborn! Ahhh…

This is my favorite place to dance all year. I had to miss it the last 2 years and was just delighted to join in again. It was wonderful.

I’ve been back from my trip to Columbus, Ohio for the TNNA yarn-industry trade show for more than a week. It was such a whirlwind! And of course, when one has been gone from ordinary life/business for 5 days, getting home means a pile of un-finished work ready to attack when one returns.

Finally I have photos ready, and not a single one has a person in it. This is really too bad, because the most important essence of the show is the human connections we make while there.

First, my most exciting stop. I met Kristin Nicholas after over a year of contact in various ways (mostly blog watching/commenting). Here are photos of some of her designs from the book “Kristin Knits.”

Spectacular color use, don’t you agree? She does a lot of knitting colorwork but also does a fair share of embroidery (sometimes duplicate stitch, sometimes more free-form) to add even more color and/or texture. I think her style is just plain top drawer.

Other folks I spent time chatting with who also love color:

Margaret Radcliffe of Maggie’s Rags, who has a new book on color coming out late in 2008 (whoops, when I first posted this entry I said 2009 by mistake… it should be out before Christmas this year). I saw the mock-up (it was maybe a dozen pages) of the book, produced so she could show it off at the book conference and then this knitting trade show. It is going to be very exciting.

Jil Eaton of MinnowKnits. I have known of Jil for years online (what would we do without Yahoo Groups?) and I adore her color sense. She has a new line of yarn that is very exciting (MinnowMerino). It’s soft, washable (no pills, I saw a garter stitch swatch that had been washed/dried many times), 21 incredible rainbow-bright colors.

Classic Elite is putting out her yarn. It looks like a fluffy one-ply (singles for you spinners) and though she calls it worsted weight I think it’s like Brown Sheep Worsted, at 4.5st/inch (not like Cascade 220 or Nashua Creative Focus Worsted, both 220 yards/100gm and 5st/inch). For someone like me who likes pure, clear color in soft washable yarn, this is a very exciting product.

Oh, and another fun fact… Jil plays bass in a band which does a lot of 1930’s jazz. I play bass and we do mostly 1920’s very-early jazz. That was a lovely thing to discover as we were discussing yarn.

Beth Brown-Reinsel. Beth is a classic in all ways, a class act who is a good listener, patient and grounded, a great teacher and lover of all historical knitting. I first knew her through her Gansey sweater knitting book, but I’ve taken many classes from her over the years (including Norwegian Mittens, perhaps my favorite). She will be here in Lansing next weekend teaching a two-day Norwegian sweater class at Threadbear, and I may splurge if there is still room in her class when I get to Threadbear this afternoon.

I also got a little time with Joan McGowan-Michael of White Lies Designs, who does the most incredible shaped knitting! She makes curvy designs that are wonderful for girls of all shapes and sizes. I love her free “Shapely Tank” and “Shapely Tee” (drat, spelled it “shaped” rather than “shapely” when I first posted, so sorry to those who came before I added clickable links) online, and probably will make one of these one of these days.

The shapely pattern includes information on how to make bust darts/shaping for your size. Brilliant… she puts this free thing up, you see how good she is, and you’re ready to go buy her more complex designs. Good marketing, good design, nice person.

On Friday and on Monday, I also got time with my music friend, Megan Palmer, who is a singer-songwriter and lives in Columbus. I felt so grounded to be connecting with her besides all the folks on the convention floor. She took me to a teahouse on Friday, where I had Kenyan tea (memory lane, sigh) and then we had Indian food at North Market on Monday just before we started home.

The other photos here in this post were taken on rides through town in Megan’s car, or on the way out of town in Rae’s car. I Love, Love Love Cities… and this one is big enough to make me smile a lot. This next photo was taken of the stret right in front of the Convention Center. Over to the left behind that line of businesses is North Market. That market is enough reason to move to Columbus, I tell you!

With that, I am done with Columbus until next spring. I’m looking forward to that, but I need to get over to Threadbear right now and teach a ZigBagZ class. Such fun.

(Photos not Lansing… see note at end of post.)
It finally feels like summer in Lansing. It’s been crazy weather here as with most of the midwest states, with 50mph winds and trees tossed into the air like salad. I took a lot of photos but am too crazy-busy catching up after 5 days on the road to process them for you right now. Trees just broke in two.

They closed Mount Hope Cemetery to visitors (and several parks as well). There are unstable trees and broken branches blocking paths. I hope there is not a lot of damage to permanent structures, I can not see any from the street but it’s a very large place.
Several grocery stores lost all perishables. Even if they have insurance, they are all hitting their suppliers hard at the same time so we will no doubt have limited frozen food supplies for a while. In fact, one of my favorite stores has a supplier which was flooded and thus their buried computer lines were rendered useless so they had a delay getting their order filled. It is going to take time to get back in order here.

I remember when I was in Africa; how people there had a sense that things can just take time. They enjoyed one another’s company while they waited for things to happen. I practiced the mantra “I’m not in charge” the whole time I was there (I did not speak any main language in any country where I visited, so I had to trust my friends to take me places and keep me happy, fed and safe… which worked just fine).

I learned from my African friends that focusing on people and relationship is something I *do* have some control over. Weather and red tape are things I must wait out. Though I have been back from that trip for over three years, I am still very much changed by that experience.

And right now, it is hotter in Lansing, Michigan than it was most of the days I was in Africa. I am really loving it. I seem to have a defective personal thermostat… my feet can be cold at 78F degrees. I love 80-86F or so. Once we get higher than that, I still am more happy than in winter but it is definitely important to slow down and dress differently.

I’ll be wearing African or Indian clothing today when I wander forth into society. I love those clothes, I wait all winter to wear them. I never liked summer clothing before… woven cotton shorts and T-shirts leave me cold, but flowy long garments which allow me to sort of “float” down the street? I can not get enough of them.

OK, since I am not developing broken-tree photos today I will show you summery photos of my African trip. I was in Ethiopia for 3 weeks, Kenya 1 week, Egypt 1 week… between late November 2004 and early January 2005. I went with my friend Altu who was born and raised and educated in Ethiopia, but is now a US citizen and who owns my favorite restaurant, in East Lansing, Michigan.

First photo is a fruit stand in Alexandria, Egypt. Second photo is the garden of Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa, in the Karen district of Nairobi, Kenya. Third is a beautiful street scene in Bahar Dar, northern Ethiopia, which Altu wants me to tell you is not a typical scene but definitely gorgeous.

(…writing this from a hotel room in Columbus, Ohio, USA. Photos are from Columbus.)

I live in Lansing, Michigan. It is a rather ordinary place in many ways, but the people are quite fine. The artful folks all seem to know one another… knitters, painters, poets, musicians, theatre folks, dancers… we all overlap pretty regularly, it seems everyone knows everyone sometimes.

But as a professional making a living as an artful person? Mostly teaching knitting? Lansing is the best place of all.

For one thing, our guild is very strong. Often we have 30-50 people at a meeting. Weeks when we do not have a meeting, folks gather in member homes (the location rotates) and even in the summer when there are no big meetings, the knit-in’s happen every week.

And the most unique thing going on here? The yarn shops get along. They let their instructors teach at more than one shop.

Most towns require their instructors to be “loyal” and exclusive to only their one shop. Often those instructors are also regular employees of the shop, running the cash register and the like.

In Lansing, we currently have 4 shops in the contiguous communities which are the “greater Lansing area.” I teach for three of those four, and get along well with the one where I do not teach. I also teach at a shop 30 minutes south and am lining up a new relationship with a shop about 20 minutes north.

I have taught at regional and national events. Between those and the classes I teach at the local shops, guild retreats, non-local Michigan shops/guilds, and a little bit of other creative/teaching work, I make this my livelihood.

Sarah Peasley and Sharon Winsauer are also Lansing-area instructors who are on the national circuit. At least in my case, I could not make this my career if it were not for the far-reaching vision of the local shops.

We know we need each other. We know that when the whole knitting community is strong, healthy, friendly and well-served (no shop can have all yarns and fill all needs for any knitter), our entire industry in our area will be more healthy.

There is no sense thinking we are in scarcity. There *is enough* business for us all, abundance can reign if we all open up and see the big picture, the future.

I am here at the TNNA trade show. I’ve run into “the boyz” (Rob and Matt who own Threadbear Fiberarts on the West Side) and got a hug from Matt (when I saw Rob, he was seated and happily knitting with a group of friends and I was on my way to an appointment).

One shop in Lansing (Little Red Schoolhouse Yarns, run by Linda) did not come to the show this year. The shop north of town (Lavender and Peonies, run by LeeAnne) also didn’t make it.

However, I came with Rae and Cindy of Rae’s Yarn Boutique. Sarah Peasley came with Nancy McRay of Woven Art in East Lansing. Lindsay and Juli of Yarn Garden in Charlotte are also attending. And tonight, I wish I had taken a photograph. The seven I mention in this paragraph, went to dinner together and had a wonderful time.

This could not happen in most towns. I mentioned this to Beth Brown-Reinsel today. She just could not believe that not only could I teach at multiple shops in one town, but that we would go to dinner. It is just unheard of in this business. Probably in most businesses… you don’t go to dinner with “the competition.” I love breaking that rule!

Knitters go to any shop they can visit. We will always want to check out one more shop. Often vacations are planned or at least changed, to make way to a shop or three we have not yet experienced. Anyone who has a shop has done this, at least before they opened. Recently Rae bought yarn from Linda for a particular project. Hey, we are all in this together for the long haul, it makes sense to be friendly!

So tonight I am here to tell you how lucky I am, and how clearly I am aware of my great fortune. I have a wonderful job I would not trade for anything. I have good friends I’ve met in the business. And I do not have to pretend that I am loyal when few knitters are… I’m loyal all right: to knitting, other knitters, the lifestyle. The community of knitting. All of us, no matter which store I am in.

I am a very happy and lucky woman. I’m glad to be in this life. I’m delighted to share that happiness with you today.

Monday is the last day of the show… we do our last bit of ordering and take Cindy to the airport, then drive about 4.5 hours home. It has just been a wonderful experience here in Columbus.

Photos? Two views from the patio in front of our hotel (Royal Plaza). I love cities and that nice, tall, shiny building reflecting clouds made me smile. Yet looking directly around me, it was just like a garden. There are people walking in this area all the time, locals *and* tourists. These were taken around lunchtime and I saw a lot of folks walking to lunch with work colleagues. It’s an alive section of the city, for sure. I really enjoyed knitting on the patio for a while and drinking it in. My city is not big enough for this, and I loved every minute.

The Event

What a hotbed of creative folks this trade show is! There are so many big names, approachable talent in my (knitting) industry all here in one small spot for most of a week. It’s incredibly exciting to be here.

For most people attending, this is a buy/sell show, though nobody goes home with bags of merchandise. This is where retail yarn shops order their fall yarns and accessories. In a business heavy on wool, it’s the big deal of the year.

There are also classes and a fashion show. Friday there was a luncheon (where Stephanie Pearl-McPhee/Yarn Harlot was the keynote speaker… I missed it).

The People

I am going to drop names here for the knitters who read ColorJoy. Many of these folks are friends and colleagues, some have taught me, and some I just know who they are and we have never spoken.

(I am guaranteed to forget a percentage… if I hugged you and then didn’t list your name, please be kind, it is just the sort of chaotic environment that one can not remember everything.) They are not all my best friends or anything, but it sure shows you the powerhouse that is the TNNA show.

I have run into or at least seen across the room (in approximate order of seeing them):

Jillian Moreno
Annie Modesitt
Kristi Porter
Margaret Radcliffe
Sally Melville
Lucy Neatby
Kristin Nicholas
Amy Singer
Shannon Okey
Melissa Leapman
Rick Mondragon, Knitter’s Magazine
Franklin Habit
Vicki Howell
all three authors of Knit So Fine (Lisa R. Myers, Laura Grutzeck, and Carol J. Sulcoski)
Beth Brown-Reinsel
Cat Bordhi
Cookie A.
Chris DeLongpre of KnittingAtKnoon
Chrissy Gardiner
Anne Hanson/Knitspot
Mary Moran of KnittingZone and Hiya Hiya knitting needles
Cheryl Potter (of Cherry Tree Hill Yarn)
Casey, Jess and Mary-Heather of Ravelry

From Lansing:
I am traveling with Rae and Cindy of Rae’s Yarn Boutique,
had dinner with Nancy McRae (Woven Art) and Sarah Peasley/Handknitter,
chatted with Lindsay and her mom from Yarn Garden/Charlotte, and
waved and chatted with Rob and Matt from Threadbear as we were proceeding between evening engagements.

(For the record, I know who all these people are, as do many people in my industry… but if you dropped the name of a young actor I typically would not know who you were talking about. I don’t “do” movies or TV because I don’t enjoy them, so I’m totally out of touch in that realm. If you feel out of place here with my list of names, I understand.)

This is the 3rd TNNA show I’ve attended. It’s fun to finally know some of the folks and really feel connected.

The Best Part

The most exciting thing today was finally meeting Kristin Nicholas. We have corresponded for perhaps a year, maybe more, thanks to her blog. We have tried four times to meet up in person, in three different states. Finally this time we made it work. She’s a wonderful color-talent in many media (knitting, embroidery, painting/illustration, author of lovely books, etc.), and a lovely person.

It was also a thrill to meet Carol Sulcoski. We have been corresponding a lot lately by email because of the Knit So Fine blog tour. She just lit up when I walked up to the author-signing table. It is always great to be greeted that way!!!

Next post, photos. I had written too much this morning and deleted several over-detailed paragraphs just now (since I’m finally awake enough to focus). Just suffice it to say that days are busy here and it’s all good.