martinimade

Sweater Quest: Chapter 10. The end of the (podcasted) yarn.*

I've been picking up random shifts at my local independent bookstore, The Green Toad. Because it's fun. 

There's a bestseller section at the front of the store. I've figured out what it takes to make your book sell well. 

All it takes is a dog snout. I will keep this in mind for my next book: Honey, The Dog Ate My Yarn.

* Any input about the podcast is appreciated. 

Chapter 8 is alive! Alive, I tell you!

Also, I'm about to send out another e-newsletter. If you'd like to get one, please sign up in the gray box in the column on the left.

Chapter Seven (part 2: the Quickening) is now live. Download at will.

Here's the first part of Chapter 7. It turns out that it is a really long chapter and my voice wasn't going to hold out until the end. It wasn't even sounding all Kathleen Turner sexy - more like Gilbert Gottfried squeaky. I made the sensible choice and stopped at a section break.

Quick question, prompted by my finally noticing what happened to sales numbers of Sweater Quest shortly after I started podcasting it. In short, the numbers plummeted.  Now, this could be due to the podcast or to the fact that the book's been out for over a year or to sunspots or Saturn in my rising house or any number of other mysterious factors. Having said that, I will now ask: do you think podcasting this book (or any book, really) makes readers more or less likely to buy said book? 

No, I have no plans to stop podcasting it, no matter what the answers are, because I'm committed (or should be committed). I'm just curious about what y'all think. So?

For your listening pleasure (I hope): Sweater Quest Chapter 6.

And while I have you here, a question: Lisa and I have been toying with making the art from this Figs available in some kind of tangible form. But we don't know what form that should be. Would you want art and text? Just art? And on what? T-shirts? Stationery? Exotic underpants? 

The only non-negotiable bit is that there will be no dead mickey on anything that is made. Yes, we are afraid of lawyers. Very, very afraid.

My cats thank you for your response.

Touch the belly. You know you want to.

Chapter Five of the podcast is alive, alive! Forgive the sniffling. The pollen is doing a number on my skull.

Also, a picture, for those who really just come here for McGregor:

It's hard to say who is more pathetic. Care to pick a side?

* I marvel much that Chapter 4 of the Sweater Quest podcast is live. (Or will be by this evening...)

* We were away for a bit. All four of us have this week off from our respective schools. And so, thanks to my mother-in-law who has a time-share and joined us, we wandered into the wilds of Pennsylvania for a few days. Very scenic, those wilds.

The Diva spent a tiny bit of the time building a fairy house.

The Boy built a fence for the house, which I didn't get a picture off, and enjoyed eating fruit by the water while fending off the paparazzi.

Oh - and my yarn souvenir from the city, Knitty City, to be exact. I didn't intend to buy anything but couldn't let this little skein get away...

Plus, it goes surprisingly well from the skein that friends Ellen and Delia brought back from New Zealand a couple of months ago and which I picked up this weekend.

It's the yummy foresty green in the back. And the blend? It's merino and - wait for it - possum.

Chapter two is now alive - or, rather, will be, once libsyn does something mysterious to the file, which should happen by 6 p.m. today. It will be here.

I also started a new sweater:

And in the time it took me take that picture, walk back upstairs and connect my camera to the computer, someone broke into my knitting bag and stole one of the balls of yarn in order to munch on its delicious Lavold silky woolness. 

One of these two has to be the culprit:

Suspect A. Note his disdain.

Subject B: Note his feigned cluelessness.

Any guesses?

Sweater Quest: The Podcast chapter 1.2 (in which I start a hat, answer a listener's question and get up-close-and-personal with McGregor's rear end) is now alive.

My view of the recording session:

I also found this self-portrait on my camera. 

I am still not entirely certain when he took it.

The next installment of the Sweater Quest podcast is now live. This time, there's an added bonus if you listen until the very end. Also, this time, there are no sounds of distant cats howling. Go here for Chapter 1.1.

Coincidentally, this showed up in the mail at the start of the week:

Its origin story is here. What Susette doesn't tell you is how weighty it feels in one's hands. I have such a big love for letterpress.

As usual, holler with question and comments on the 'cast. I am still learning.