Three Ply...on Amazon!

A while back, I published an eBook on Ravelry called Three Ply.  It's a sweet combo for summer: three smaller knitting patterns, plus short stories that link up with all three.  The patterns are also all for sale separately: The Hole Inside Mitts, Riverbend Garden Hat, and Knitting for Mother Earth Cowl.  However, I didn't really have the time or wherewithal to launch the eBook more widely...until I read, recently, that some designers were selling their work on Amazon.

Summer's both crazy busy with activities and also?  A little bit quiet at work some days.  So, I went to Amazon to try it out, and suddenly....Three Ply was available for pre-order!

I'm excited!  The launch date is Friday, July 19th. If you order now, it will show up on your Kindle then, just in time for summer weekend reading.  I hope you're sitting outside in the shade with a tall cool drink....knitting away...and maybe, just maybe, reading your new copy of Three Ply.

A normal snow day

Scene from the back door, 8:15 AM today

Growing up in Virginia, any day that looked like this would be a day off school.  Hah.  The truth is that in a northern climate, winter snow is a way of life--and nothing is cancelled unless it's dire.  In fact, we need the precipitation, it has been a 'dry' winter so far without much snow. We have a blowing snow advisory, and maybe it could be called a blizzard, if the wind picks up.  It's messy, and I have a medical appointment later on today.  I haven't even seen any plows.  And yeah, the school bus came by as usual at 7:50 or so.  There were some half-hearted attempts by twins--at play-shoveling while waiting for the bus.  (We'll do real shoveling after the wind dies down.  Right now, there is just no point.)

I had a brief exchange recently with someone about how to clean a throw rug.  Note: I do not do this while recovering from pneumonia...  I recommended the "clean in the snow technique."  

Take it outside, put it on a patch of clean snow.  Stomp on it. Flip it over, and stomp again.  Hang it up on a porch railing.  Beat it with the stick end of a snow shovel or broom.  Let it air out--outdoors.  Bring in, hang to dry.  Put on floor.

"What an interesting use for snow!" She responded.  (I'm paraphrasing here.)  ...Uhh, when the snow is around from November to April?  We manage to find things to do with it... although both boys seemed chatty and excited about the prospect of a possible indoor recess rather than sledding today, given the windy, snowy weather.  (Yes, we have outdoor recess until the windchill is -28C.  That's about -18F.)

In the meanwhile, I'm passing a long a link to an article I wrote that went live online and in the Vancouver Jewish Independent last Friday:

Continually coping with our deficits

If you like to read these occasional links, you may be interested in downloading a copy of From the Outside In. It's a collection of some of the older essays in this vein...You can also buy it online in hard copy.  (These are the Canadian links, if you want to check it out in the US, it's right here.)

Is it snowing where you are? If so...Stay warm!  Wear your tuque!  :)

what I did on my vacation...

Long time, no post!  Sorry about that.

My twins started winter break after school on December 16th.  Things got very busy.  In the meanwhile, late at night and during naptime, I managed to accomplish a few things I am very happy about.

Big Things: From the Outside In is now available in paperback.  It's available as a Kindle download and it's available from a whole pile of other places if you use another kind of digital device.

Also, after six months of running low fevers, having lots of unpleasant symptoms, and feeling generally crummy--I have been diagnosed with Lyme disease...and the lab test was positive according to CDC guidelines, so there is that.

This was a relief!  Instead of being seen as potentially hysterical or ill with something vague and undefinable, I've been handed a pile of antibiotics.  I sure hope it works and I begin to feel better soon.

Small Things:  Grown ups in our household did not get anything really glamorous for Hanukah.  We do not do really big presents, but even so, a few things really made winter break better.

1) A new microwave:  When your microwave has hot spots, it can make you run like a crazy person to get your (smokin') bag of popcorn and rush outside to dump it into the snow.  Then, when even the dogs won't approach it, I was forced to bring it back inside, run it under cold water, and then rush out to the compost to get rid of it.  Note: the temperatures here are really low, and I put the bag in the snow, and it was all still smoking.

You can bet the house smelled bad.  Time for a new appliance!?

2) A Gleener 
This thing removes pills from sweaters.  It is amazing.  We wear our woollies very hard, and a lot of handknit things in our house were looking mighty worn.  I set up a little schedule with one of my twins and we "gleened" two sweaters a day for a while and removed a lot of pills.  My kid still says "pins" when he means pills but he is very keen to take all the fuzzy bits and throw them away once the sweater is tidy again.  It has been a super investment.  Not romantic, mind you, but I am very glad the Professor bought it for me from Canadian Tire.

3) A gift from my parents:  A traditional gift on Hanukah is "gelt" which just means--money.  You may have noticed that Canadian currency has dropped a lot when compared to the US.  My parents sent us some money to spend on going out to eat/take out to make the break easier.  We had a lot of fun, and those American dollars went farther than one might think.  Thanks, folks!

That about sums up our break, aside from sledding, playing outside in snow suits, cooking a lot, playing inside a lot, three play dates (I baked challah with three five year olds.  I still can't believe I attempted this.)  and a lot more...

School started again January 3rd.  I love kindergarten. :)

That's the news from here.  How are you?  Drop me a line?

It's live! A new eBook!

It's available now!  New!  Finally!  Remember my 'special project' in July?

Here it is.  It's taken a while.  This collection is a year and a half of my newspaper columns.  It’s a first-person essay that runs twice a month, covering community building, holidays, family life, Jewish learning, and other issues. It focuses particularly on my local community, but my understanding is that it may be useful in a broader context.

This has been a very steep learning curve. :) However, a very kind woman (who does a lot for our community) came to me after services one week, pulled me aside, and told me she was clipping all my columns and saving them in a file folder. This was such a surprise---and it seemed like a very good reason to put a year and a half of these articles in the same place. It’s about Winnipeg, and about our city’s Jewish community, but from the feedback I’ve gotten so far, it’s probably a little bit about where you live, too.


The eBook is available in a variety of places for $3.99US.  (The price of a big cup of joe)

Kindle:
From the Outside In: Jewish News & Post Columns, 2015-2016

and through this universal link, you can connect with it on iBooks, Kobo, Nook, and Scribd, as well as a pile of other platforms.

The official "launch" date is December 16th, but in some cases, it is available now.  If you pre-order it, the file should magically appear on your e-reader tomorrow.

The paperbook will be available on Amazon soon, but it's not quite ready for the big time.  In the meanwhile, I was too excited to keep this news to myself. :)

If you're a knitter and you visit my blog for knitting info and designs, Please use the coupon code:
Launch
and get 20% off my Ravelry patterns until midnight (CT) on December 29th.  Help me celebrate!

New Pattern and new eBook!

Here's a portion of what's been going on behind the scenes here!  This announcement will hopefully be going out as a press release today...and these have already been (quietly) launched on Ravelry, too!

Introducing a new Yarn Spinner Story + Pattern --Riverbend Garden Hat. The new Yarn Spinner Story + Pattern series allows readers who knit (or knitters who read) two pleasures at once: downloadable short fiction on Ravelry, accompanied by a pattern that stands on its own. This is a sweet combination for thinking knitters, particularly ones using a tablet or smartphone.

An adult learns his mother’s biggest secret.

Riverbend Garden: A Love Story, features a middle-aged man as he rediscovers the familiar is not what it seems. A mid-20^th century teacher, a loving mother, serious gardener and knitter, Dickie’s mom lived an unremarkable, but lonely life. Yet, she has time for one last story; of a dappled river bend garden, an empty marriage, a widowhood, and a student whose love transforms all boundaries.

This story pairs with a hat to fit everyone, from a small child to a grown man. It’s a fast project; knit with super bulky or a doubled worsted yarn. Make an extra to keep others warm; Dickie’s mama would want you to pass one on.

Want more stories?

Three Ply, the first Yarn Spinner Story+ Pattern eBook, is now available for Ravelry download!  It includes three patterns, for a hat, mittens and a cowl, and three stories: Riverbend Garden, as well as The Hole Inside and Knitting for Mother Earth. All three patterns are also available individually for download on Ravelry.

The Hole Inside offers unrequited love from an independent knitter. On a business trip, she’s invited to a knitting group. Settle into a coffee, a college town, and an unsettling surprise from the past.

-Paired with a stranded mitten pattern in 7 sizes, from 2-4 years to XXL

Knitting for Mother Earth catches a young woman on a commuter train. She alerts a fellow passenger to potential danger…and in the aftermath of attempted terrorism, builds a strong bond through knitting.

-Paired with a super bulky cowl pattern, ideal for hand dyed or handspun one-of-a-kind skeins.

If you'd like to check out this new eBook deal right away, click on that "buy now" link, below!  ($15 for three stories + patterns--a discount of more than 25% off the price of the individual patterns.)
As always, thanks for checking out my new design. :) Joanne

ebooks

I'm hearing about more and more people who are buying their new books only as ebooks. This way there is a much smaller carbon footprint for their purchase. (No paper, no printing, no shipping--all in all, a very good and green idea.) I'm sort of old fashioned, so I still really enjoy buying my books as, well, books...but even so, I end up buying a lot of my books used so I know more than one person makes use of that original production energy. However, on thinking about it, it seemed to me that other people who were interested in buying Knit Green new might worry about their carbon footprints.

It also seemed to me that if you were, perhaps, driving around to festivals with your copy of Fiber Gathering, it might be easier to transport as an electronic file.

Yet, when I've checked the sales figures of my books, I was surprised. I found very, very few books have been bought as ebooks. (fewer than 20 copies total for each book.)
....so I'll come right out and say it.
Did you know that you can buy Knit Green as an ebook download? You could download and knit designs from this book without ever printing it! You could also perhaps print out just the patterns you were planning on knitting...

Also, did you know you could get Fiber Gathering online as ebook download?

I'm not very good at being a salesperson for my books sometimes. I'm also not too hot at this promotional thing...it makes me feel very self-conscious. However, this topic seemed like maybe it was worth mentioning. I'll be curious to know from you, dear readers, if you are reading more books as ebooks these days. Does this sort of thing tempt you? I'm curious. Tell me if you're tempted by this sort of thing or if, like me, you're still sort of a fan of the old-fashioned, paper and print, hold-in-your-hand book. Inquiring minds want to know...