I’m home, exhausted but happy and 24! I’ll catch up with you soon, but right now I’m going to sleep in my own bed.

I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell you, but I’m going to be at Brooklyn General on Sunday afternoon from 12-5. If you’re local it would be great to see you there! For everyone else, here are some pretty pictures from the last week to distract you from the fact that I’m too busy to write a proper post.

Yes - those are teeny, tiny versions of the grown up booties and garter stitch mitts! They were a gift from a wonderful knitter that I met last night at Knitty City - I love these so much, miniatures are just so very pleasing.

I’ve been too busy to catch up on the blog again, but let’s see if I can at least make a start. Last weekend the knitting industry gathered in Columbus Ohio for a lot of work and plenty of play at the TNNA trade fair. It was great to explore the marketplace, discover new things and talk to the people behind the yarn but my favourite part was meeting so many of the people I know online in person and discovering that they’re so much more wonderful in ‘real’ life.

There was more ridiculous jumping.

Late at night a bunch of us hung out in the hotel, Mary Heather dove a little too far into my trunk show.

And Jess convinced me and Cirilia to do a hilarious model off.

Of course the thing that everyone’s talking about is Jeni’s ice cream, which I might have eaten daily for 6 days - and bought the matching shirt.

Jeni’s is not only the source of fabulous ice cream, they also provided Cat Bhordi with dry ice - which drew a lot of us to the Stitch Co-op booth.

Mousie had to invesigate, but I’m happy to report he survived the ordeal.

Once most people had left I got to hang out with Miriam, we managed to entertain ourselves with more ice cream and silly photography. It was so nice to spend a little longer talking to her outside the craziness of the show.

After the show I stayed in Columbus for a couple extra days for my event at Wonderknit which happily led to being around to attend a talk given by the lovely Louisa Harding.

I left TNNA so wonderfully inspired and motivate to get going on some new projects, I’m excited to be spending a week back in New York but I’m also looking forward to going home and getting back to designing full time.

I’ve spent this weekend in Pittsburgh - with baby alpacas and lots of pie - and before I leave I’ll be at the Sewickley Public Library tomorrow from 7:15 - 10, it would be great to see you there!

p.s. thank you to everyone I shamleslly stole photos from!

I had a fantastic but crazy weekend at TNNA (needlework trade fair) and I’ll blog about that soon, but here are a few events that will be coming up over the next - super busy - week.

- tomorrow (thursday) evening I’ll be at River Colors Studio in Lakewood Ohio from 6-8
- on Saturday I’ll be at Blooming Yarns in McMurray Pennsylvania from 7-9
- Monday the 22nd I’ll be doing another evening event in Pittsburgh with the knitting guild and I’ll update you with the time and location asap.
- next Thursday (the 25th) I’ll be back in New York City, at Knitty City from 6-8.

I’ll be leaving New York City on the 30th so I’m trying to arrange a couple more events before I leave, I’ll let you know soon.

It’s possible that this shawlette thing is getting obsessive, but here’s another one.

photo by St Range Photography

This is in the yarn that I dyed a few months ago when I visited the wonderful Lilith at her studio (you too can visit). Lilith scribbled a few notes while I was randomly sploshing dye around and while I knew she was a colour genius I was still impressed when she managed to perfectly re-create what I’d done. So now, if you want, you can make your own little shawlette in Ysolda yarn. Once again I forgot to take pictures before I sent the sample off to the magazine, but I think it also works well as part of a more casual outfit, scrunched around your neck. I guess I just need to make my own so that I can show you.

You might have to wait a little while for me to get the pattern for the shawlette I showed you yesterday up, but while you’re waiting why don’t you knit this one?

I love my friend Laura Chau’s new pattern, Milkweed.

Chicago’s turning out to be a rather inspiring place. There’s some beautiful architecture, including this utterly perfect storybook turret. I’ve had some time to wander around (if 12 miles in a day can be called wandering!) and managed to visit the zoo, free and spacious which is nice, but a little too crowded on a sunny day for my liking and the sunshine meant most of the animals were snoozing. Luckily there’s a great hothouse beside the zoo which has the bonus of bathrooms with no lines.

I took far too many photos of plants, but they are amazing and very inspiring. I’d love to go back to these pictures and pick up on their shapes in a lace design.

This is a big city, but it’s also very green and I love the often unexpected combination of urban and natural.

Of course I had to visit the bean, which despite being such a recognisable landmark was still surprising in person and so much fun to play with. Can you see me?

Loopy Yarns on Saturday was such a fun event, you certainly kept me busy signing books! Lots of Ishbels came along. Don’t you love the wall of colour? They had every single colour of cascade 220, I’d love to play with that.

Last weekend I visited the Knitting Tree in Madison. It was a fun, busy afternoon although maybe just a little too much excitement for the toys! Possibly for me too, since this was the only photo I took all afternoon. Luckily other people, including the designer of some of the most adorable knits ever, were better bloggers.

I loved Madison and my hosts Andrea and Jason made sure I had a great time. We rode cute vintage bikes, although the pedal brakes took a little crashing to get used to!

Madison is such a bike friendly place, wide flat streets, lots of bike paths and friendly drivers who don’t try and crowd you. Not like Edinburgh with it’s mysteriously ending bike lanes and hilly terrain.

We ate messy but delicious ice cream and knit at the most beautiful student union location I’ve ever seen.

Saw the Capitol at night from a distance,

and during the day up close.

We also shopped on State Street, where we met a knitter and wannabe sweater designer in a cafe - this is my kind of place, and then biked to the charming Lakeside Fibers.

Love that yarn wheel and there’s an attached cafe at the back overlooking the lake.

I left Madison last Tuesday and made a brief visit to Hartford Wisconsin, a little town between Madison and Milwaukee with a great yarn store - Main Street Yarn Shop. This is a pretty new store with a big space full of well choosen natural fibres and an owner who goes out of her way to stock patterns by indie designers - love that! They also seem to do a great job of reaching out to the community with lots of groups, including a young knitters club - a few kids bought my book and yarn to make projects from it, isn’t that awesome?

My visit to Hartford also led to meeting Melissa, author of this adorable picture book with a knitting theme. She wrote it for her daughter and it features the owner of the yarn store as a skilled knitting spider and although Melissa was charmingly humble she really has no need to be.

A few weeks ago Julie Frick posted a photo of her Ishbel on flickr with the title “shawlette is the new cowl?”. I don’t know if this is true, but I do know that shawlettes are the perfect travel knitting and that I’ve become a little obsessed. So far I’ve completed one new design, I’m working on two more and I’ve got an old but unpublished one on the needles although that last one may venture into full sized shawl territory.

I don’t have a very precise definition of what a shawlette is, but that’s part of the charm. A pretty little thing to drape around your neck, easier to size than a cowl and more versatile to wear - the ideal project on which to experiment with shape, structure and play with lace.

The crucial equation when planning travel knitting is the relationship between space taken up, hours of knitting enjoyment and suitability for various knitting environments. The shawlette obviously wins on the first two considerations, with the bonus that the small amount of yarn required makes it an ideal way to use souvenir skeins, and I’ve been dealing with the third in a couple of ways. The first trip shawlette combines garter stitch with a very simple large scale lace border - perfect for knitting while chatting to people but just interesting enough for alone time knitting, on a train for example. The yarn is a super squishy wool, cashmere, silk blend that I bought at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival (from a small websiteless company). Loosely spun - the crazy softness would normally have been a warning that it would wear badly, but on Sunday afternoon when my feet were wet and everything was muddy I picked this up and had to buy it - a total comfort purchase.

I’m now working on two projects, one that’s mostly stocking stitch with some yarn overs and short rows - playing with Elizabeth Zimmerman’s pi shawl concept. This wonderfully cheery yarn is from Tess Designer Yarns - it’s the silk laceweight. The second is more complex, but still relatively simple lace and while it’s a secret design project that I can’t show you it does have rather a pretty shadow and I can assure you that Malabrigo Sock makes lovely lace.

Both of the pouches pictured above I picked up at Elephante in Portland. I do love my zippered pouches, but zips + yarn = potential urghh! Olga had a wonderful little knitting clutch that I think she made herself, using one of this type of metal bag frame. Neater than a drawstring and less hazardous than a zipper this seems like the perfect solution. I might try making some myself when I get home, but if anyone knows of anyone making cute pouches with this sort of closure do let me know.

After leaving my island I flew to Wisconsin where I spent a couple of days staying with Michelle Lane, her family and some rather adorable animals. These are babydoll sheep and their favourite treat is animal crackers.

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Spring of course is the perfect time to visit someone with sheep - lambs!

The horse loved wool just a little too much though. While staying with Michelle I did an event at the super friendly Yellow Dog Knitting who even decorated with balloons for my visit.

I signed lots of books, chatted to knitters and may have fallen a little in love with this wheel - even though I don’t really ever spin. Luckily the horror of having to ship it to Scotland was motivation to leave it behind.

One of the knitters brought a tiny little pre-knitter with her and I finally got to take a photo of the tiny shoes on real baby feet.

The following day Michelle and one of her friends took me on a great tour of their area, including a trip to a rather crazy, but wonderful yarn store. This place might be messy but it’s also something of a treasure trove, I found some great vintage buttons, my silly kerchief and some local alpaca that’s truly the softest I’ve ever felt. I also spent some time searching the endless aisles of a huge antique mall for buttons, I’ve already mailed them home but I ended up with quite a haul. New storage / display for my button collection may be in order when I get back.