ARCTIC LACE!

Knitting Out Loud is proud to release our fifteenth audiobook, ARCTIC LACE! This wonderful audiobook is beautifully and lovingly read by its accomplished author Donna Druchunas, who was an absolute delight to work with.

ARCTIC LACE is the story of Donna's personal quest for the mysterious luxury yarn qiviut and the elusive Native Alaskan women who knit it into gorgeous lace patterns. Donna tells the moving stories of the women of the Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers’ Co-operative (do check out their great website, one look will make you smile) in Anchorage, stories reflecting their courage and determination to maintain and honor a traditional culture in the midst of contemporary pressures. We learn about the rare Musk Ox from which qiviut comes, and hear remarkable stories of the daring first European explorers to traverse Alaska’s inhospitable terrain.



Donna Druchunas is the author of Successful Lace Knitting, Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland, Kitty Knits and The Knitted Rug. She designs knits for Family Circle Easy Knitting, Interweave Knits, Knitter’s, PieceWork and several yarn companies.



Join Donna this fall on her Canada & New England Knitting Cruise! I can't imagine anything more fun! It is a nine day cruise which stops, among other exciting places, in Bar Harbor, Maine, one of the most beautiful spots on earth.

My garden here in Maine is just stirring to life. Below are Squill, or Scilla, which I dug up from the side of the road in Blue Hill (so I think of them as Blue Hill Squill) at the prompting, or rather bullying, of my delightful plant thieving neighbor Bettie Thornton (Bettie passed away some years ago, but she could out dig, out garden me right up to the end and I miss her very much). You can see that the Squill have naturalized in the grass.

My hellebore!
This is cheating, a photo from last year, but the Jeanne d'Arc crocus are blooming.
Muscari are my favorites.
What I especially admire about Donna Druchunas is her interest in and commitment to folk, or ethnic knitting. She brings this sensitivity and love to ARCTIC LACE.

Happy spring! Odd how it always seems like a new and fresh miracle every year.
-Kathy

New Hampshire Spinners and Dyers Guild 2011

It was my very great pleasure to speak at the annual meeting of the New Hampshire Spinners and Dyers Guild today. Last October I spoke in New Hampshire to the Seacoast Knitters, and the lovely Harriet Bailey arranged for me to do the talk again today for the NHSDG. The meeting was at the Epsom, New Hampshire Fire Station which has a beautiful hall on its second floor. I love New England.

I had driven to New Hampshire yesterday (it is a four hour drive so not practical as a one-day trip) and spent the night with my friend Kathleen Kearns (she designed my website and is currently working at M.I.T. I have known Kathleen for twenty years, our daughters are best friends - my daughter did the drawings on Kathleen's website - and our husbands, both painters, are currently painting together in Texas) which was a great treat.

Today was stunning, as only a warm sunny spring day in New England can be after a long snowy winter. We were all euphoric. Harriet Bailey met my car and insisted on helping me carry things in, and as she is a tiny bit older than I we quarreled for a minute over this and then I gave in. She is an inspiration.
The ladies were wonderful.
Judith Bastianelli showed me a Corsican spinning technique, which I am guessing must be thousands of years old. She learned of this method of spinning with well, a twig, then saw it again on the island of Corsica.
Below are Ruth Stevens and Judith Bastianelli in their lovely hand-knits.

I am sorry I didn't get the name of the lady below, but her beautiful sweater is all her own hand-spun! *I have just received her name: Judy Gauthier.
Gorgeous Ashford wheel.

Fran Emory is on the left, and I did not get her friend's name (so sorry!). Look at their wonderful hand-knits! *I have just received her name: Susan Burns.
Below is Fran Emory in a vest she designed and knit based on...
these buttons!


People brought their fiber in lovely baskets.
This is a gorgeous Canadian spinning wheel designed for production spinning, Harriet Bailey informed me.
Beautiful metal foot pedal!

I am back home now and it is 8:30 pm. I stopped at the new Trader Joe's in Portland on the way home and bought coffee, wine, figs and olive oil. Listened to a 1940's Sherlock Holmes radio theater with Basil Rathbone in the car. May watch a little Perry Mason before I turn in. Tomorrow I will work on Macbeth, Tudors, Borgias, Medicis etc for Senior College, and on taxes for the government.
-Kathy

Williamsburg, Virginia

My husband goes to Charleston, South Carolina once a year on business. This November he stopped at Williamsburg, Virginia on his way home.
And took pictures of sheep for me.
Williamsburg has a rare breeds program.
Is this a Leicester Longwool sheep?
The streets are charming.




Look at this brickwork!

My husband's fellow painter Stapleton Kearns standing on the lovely brick sidewalk.

Inside the apothecary's.



The stages of a coin silver spoon.
The forge.



The armory.



Spinning and weaving.




Beautiful 18th century gardens!



Best wishes for the holidays to you all. Peace and joy. Quiet and contentment. Knitting happiness. Family love. Faith and hope. Good health. Good friends. Belief in the goodness of the future. Charity. Forgiveness. Gratitude. A good garden. Captivating books. Intriguing color, light, life.
-Kathy