Monday, June 30, 2014



Hi Y'all!
Well I just got back from Monhegan Island about a week ago. The sunset picture was taken by my Austin friend, David Gottlieb, who just so happened to visit the island with his family while I was there. As I was mentioning in my last post I LOVE IT THERE! And I can't wait to see you when we head out with Knitting and Yoga Adventures in September. 

I've got a bunch of pictures for you. While I was out on the island I bonded, as I always do, with Holden, who will be our host at Monhegan House. Here we are bonding:


Mary Alice, who comes along as our massage genius, sent me an email while I was there and included pictures of her latest amazing knitted accessory. MA's sister makes her the most incredible things. To commemorate MA's 21st year of offering massages at the Boston Marathon, this is what she created:



Meanwhile, I kept chugging along on the socks I've been working on forever. I didn't get a ton of knitting done on the island, since I was there to write (and write I did-- 70 pages!). But during my eighteen gazillion-hour layover at JFK on the way home, I did manage to finish Sock One. And, not to brag or anything, but as I was sitting there in a busy airport kitchener stitching away, I felt a little pride. When I took a sock class years ago to fight my sock-making phobia, my teacher emphasized to us that we should never ever ever kitchener stitch in the presence of others, as it was too easy to get distracted. Now, though, I've finished enough toes so that I can almost do it with my eyes closed. (I'm sure I just jinxed myself saying all this, and the second sock will wind up with Funky Toe Issues). Here I am nonchalantly finishing the sock and then showing it off:



And finally for now, a post about Monhegan wouldn't be a post about Monhegan without several Amazing View pictures. So here are a couple of more for you to tide you over til you get there:



See you in ten weeks! Can't wait.
Spike

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Greetings from Monhegan Island!


Hello From Monhegan Island!
No, you didn't miss the trip-- that's in September just like we told you. But I have come to love Monhegan Island so much that I take an extra trip here each year and bring a bunch of writers with me. We are having such an amazing time. The weather is perfect. Holden is, as ever, his fabulous Holden self. The food is fantastic. And the sunsets just cannot be beat.

Even though technically I'm here this week to be working on a book-- which I am, I swear-- I'm still finding time to knit. I am working on some socks for me, me, me now that I finished the baby blanket and the horsey hats I was telling y'all about in recent posts. Below is a picture of the sisters I've been knitting for forever. I finally delivered their horse hats and they are so psyched they don't even care that it's in the 90s in Austin-- they are wearing those hats! Thank you girls!


And below is a picture of my new grand nephew, Parker. He arrived before I finished the Chevron blanket I knitted for him out of Blue Sky cotton and some wild Noro bumpy stuff. But I knocked out the last few rows pretty quickly-- as you can see the blanket still fits him just fine. (He's the one on the left, in case you were wondering.)


And speaking of family members... today I finally got to meet Susan Mills' beautiful daughter Mackenzie. She's on Monhegan Island for the summer working at the Monhegan House and the Novelty, the great pizza and ice cream joint behind (and owned by) Monhegan House. I'm pretty sure she'll still be here when y'all arrive in September, so you'll get to meet her, too, as well as learn cool knitting tricks from her amazing mom. 


I hope wherever you are this summer that you're getting in a lot of knitting, a lot of relaxing, and plenty of gorgeous sunsets. Can't wait to see you on the island!
Spike

It's Been A Minute

Hi Friends! It's been a minute on the blog post aspect of things - many, many minutes. I want to jump back into it with a few things.  P...