So today’s post doesn’t go back to the age of the dinosars, but it does go back to when I was teaching in New York. After our evacuation on  9/11, a few teachers and I taught a bunch of our students to knit and we donated what we made to Women in Need shelter and the Bowery Mission. Many yarn companies and publishers stepped in to support us with donations which meant the world to us (SoHo Publishing, Elizabeth Eakins,  and...

Way back a long time ago, oh, way before you were born, missey, I knitted up a little envelope for Thing 2’s teeth as they shuffled off the mortal coil known as his mouth and alit on a pillow. Those little buggers went missing easily under his pillow and the little knitted envelope seemed to help keep the teeth easy to find—plus he liked it. I thought it was such a durn useful thing that I would just hop on Excel and make up a...

My son needs surgery. Not planned surgery but that kind of kick-in-the-gut surprise surgery that is halfway between, sure okay and It’s An Emergency.   The Long of It If you’ve followed my blog or podcast since 2005-2006, then you know that my younger son was born with Microtia—a not-as-rare-as-you’d-think condition that gave him a very small ear and no ear canal on the right side, but a working middle and inner...

I could run out on the street and grab a stranger and give them a big ol’ hug, I’m so happy happy happy. I just finished the Super Secret Shrug thing for Defarge-3 (Defarge Does Shakespeare, for those keeping score at home)! Yes, Defarge 2 has yet to come out (though it’s in pre-orders) but we’re already hard at work on the next book in the series. We’re also still accepting submissions for Defarge Does Chaucer and...

After my Close Encounters with ugly people, I got to go re-visit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Thing 2 had an ear appointment down at UVa, and that, my friends, is a two-and-a-half-hour drive for us. Thing 1 was dragged along. Life was made tolerable by home-made (two of them gluten free) Egg McMuffins. We toodled down to meet the wonderful doctor who told us that, indeed, Thing 2’s ear canal skin graft had mucosalized (how, you may...

Actually, not so much God, but a guy who thought he was. In reality, he was Jordan Baker. He cut across three aisles of parking lot with nary a glance to the side and were it not for my brakes, he would now be paying for my funeral. I had a rare opportunity–rare for me when it comes to people like him–where I said, “you know, we were THAT close when you cut across without looking”. He smiled and said, “good thing...