yes, yes, yes... and yes!?!!

You really never know what will happen when you put yourself out there.  I got the submission call for the 60 Quick Toddler Knits Book on August 14th.  I left for vacation on August 15th with 6 skeins of yarn and 14 days to come up with as many designs possible. I knit swatch after swatch and my husband did sketch after sketch.  Racing to put together the pitch, which was sent 10 minutes before the deadline, didn't give me much time for reflection.  Once it was over, I walked around in a bit of a daze: Did that just happen?  Was it any good?  Did they even get it?  

It turns out they did get the pitch - and  a week later they selected four of my nine designs.  I was absolutely floored. But euphoria quickly turned into anxiety when I realized that I had only 4 weeks to write and knit 4 patterns - from scratch!   Was I mistakenly cast in a knitting reality show?  Because that's what it seemed like!   I'm not sure how much other knitters develop their patterns before pitching. Maybe some of you have them knit, writ, and ready to go, but I have a lot of figuring to do to go from swatch and sketch to 3 dimensional garment. Then there's the actual knitting.  Which, if each sweater weights between 300-400 grams, is many days of knitting.  Full days.  Like from the time you open your eyes until you're so sleepy you can't count your stitches on the needles.  G-d forbid you should make a mistake.  And need to re-knit a neckline four times (2 hours). OR knit an alternate set of sleeves just in case one is too wide (6 hours), OR reknit the full yoke of a cabled sweater that you are working in the round (8 hours).  OR reknit an entire sweater because the first one was just too loose (3 days). That would NEVER happen, but if it did, you better hope they'll extend your deadline.  Phew.

Let's just say there was yarn everywhere, several piles of laundry about 2 feet tall,  I drank much too much coffee, ate an unfortunate amount of cheese and crackers, and my doggie went for 1 real walk a week. And boy did watch a LOT of television. I'd like to give a shoutout to the cast and crew of The Affair, Homeland, Doll & Em, Transparent, The Great British Baking Show, Arranged, Project Runway, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.  And let's not forget the podcasts, because you can't look up when you're seaming - This American Life, the Ted Radio Hour, Marc Maron's WTF, Design Matters, and Leonard Lopate.  We did it!