There’s so much to tell so I’ll try and start from the beginning. And for those of you wanting to know when it will air, I don’t know exactly. Sometime mid-late 2007 look for episode #806 called “Hand Painted Yarn.” That’s all I know!
I can’t believe that I had my camera with me and was so busy I barely got any pictures. The few I got are here. I wish I had gotten the stage with all of the swag on it but since I was the last show it was a bit hectic and before I knew it, everything had been taken down! I guess you’ll have to wait for the show to see your stuff on it.
I arrived on Monday and after checking in I went back to the airport pick up my friend Jenn of KnowKnits who flew out from NYC to help me. I had more stuff than the average guest because I had tons of dyeing stuff, step outs, warping boards, skein winder, swift….lots of stuff. I am so thankful she was there. She, on the otherhand probably regrets it because she ended up as a Knitster! Another Knitster didn’t show up and told them, “Hey!! Jenn can do it!” See how happy she is? If you only knew what she’s really thinking.
When we got to the studio the first person I saw was Cat Bordhi. I’m not allowed to talk about her project because it’s top secret but I can tell you it’s unfreakingbelievable! It’s a project out of her new book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters, Book One, due spring of 2007. We got to spend a lot of time together and she is just the coolest. I was a bit nervous because she kept watching what I was doing through rehearsal. She ended up telling me it was because she really thought it was cool and wanted to learn about it. That sure made me feel good. But yeah, Cat is good people and such a genius it makes me head hurt trying to figure out what she does. I look forward to seeing her again.
Once we arrived I had to set up my table. This was where I would be for the next two days practicing what I was going to say. Flat Scout came along and look at all of the people she met!
I forgot to get Jordana Paige to hold her but she was there too. If you don’t recognize everyone, clockwise from me is domiKNITrix, Vickie Howell and Cat Bordhi. Here is a better picture of what I was trying to organize for two days straight. I would say this was maybe half of the stuff I was working into the show.
So Monday was spent rehearsing and trying to figure out how we could put a 5 hours class I normally teach into three-four, five minute segments. That proved to be quite a challenge. It was so hectic, we never even practiced the knitting part until I actually did it on the show. And I totally did the ole, long tail cast on and then promptly ran out of yarn. That was comical. The camera’s running and I’m all “And you cast on 15 stitches like this, and then…..okay you run out of yarn….. SORRY!!!” But I’m getting ahead of myself. It was so busy on Monday I didn’t even get to see Vickie for more than 2 seconds as she walked by me while eating lunch. I practiced all I could for the day and was to be back at the studio on Tuesday for my run-through at 11:00am. Jenn and I went back to the hotel and ate dinner. When we got back to our room there was a message from Vickie apologizing for it being so crazy and not being able to really talk with me and invited me down to hang out and have a drink with her while she ate dinner. That was fun, just the two of us hung out for a while which definitely made me feel way less stressed about going back to the studio the following day. If only I had gotten sleep though. It was too quiet. Yes. Quiet. I didn’t have my normal fan on for white noise and it was impossible for me to sleep.
Tuesday. I was glad I wasn’t one of the people who had to be at the studio at 7:00am. Arriving at 11:00am was perfect. It meant I had 4 hours to do run throughs and get ready for my show at 3:00pm. I have to say, that Sonya, my producer kicks all kinds of ass. She really, just rocked. We had fun together even though it was stressful for her. See, she had to convince them to do this show. Since it’s not a normal knitting show, she had something to prove. This meant that all of the bigwigs were coming to my/her show to see what she put together. Hi! Thanks for the added stress!!! Thankfully Sonya knew how to calm me down and make me laugh and Vickie was so great while shooting. She’d hug me, or simply tell me not to worry about it and that was all I needed to hear to feel better.
The time finally came for me to get dressed and throw the face together. Did you notice the cool Dream Swatch Head Wrap designed by Wendy of Knit and Tonic? I gave my sweet friend Molly some of my hand-dyed yarn and the pattern and asked her to make it. The deal was, I take it with me and she gets to keep it! Everyone loved it and the stylist was so excited for me to wear it. Here is a better shot of it from Molly. I even got the nicest compliment from the sound guy who said out of all of the things he had seen, he liked that the best. He said it was so cool that I had dyed the yarn, knit it (I corrected him there) and then wore it on the show and that it also looked great on TV. So a big thanks to Wendy and Molly!
Where was I? Before I knew it, it was time for my show. My show was the last shoot for the whole thing. Once we finished, season 7 & 8 were wrapped! You can only imagine how tired everyone was at this point but they were all still, so great to me. Dave, the art director looked at me as we wheeled my table out and saidn, “Listen. We are here to make you look good. If you need 5 minutes to redo something you have it. Don’t worry about anything. We are here to help YOU.” Go to Vickie’s album to see a bunch of pictures of all of the people on the set.
My shoot took 2.5-3 hours. I guess we actually finished early which was music to everyone’s ears. A lot of that time was setting up the cameras for the weird things I did on the show that were not normal shots for them. One camera man had to climb a ladder to get me talking about the warping board and while I dyed the yarn and then we had three cameras trying to get us do the swift to the skein-winder. That was the most fun part of the shoot. Watching Vickie twirl the skein winder was totally hysterical and then she looked at me and said, “How many YARDS are in this!” Ummmmmm 420? That part will be one of those montage, fast forward shots in the show. After that, I simply wound the re-skeined yarn into a pretty skein and we were ready to do the cute project I came up with for the show.
After I did the knitting part I got to see how they have all of those shots of everyone laughing and looking like their having such a great time. Standing there for a minute laughing at each other over nothing is much harder than you think. Vickie and I had to do that up at the table and then with the Knitsters. Here are my Knitsters!
They were so sweet and knit up some really cool things with the yarn I dyed for them. And before I knew it, it was over. Vickie still had to do a few promo shots. I thought it was so funny to watch her stand there and have to say, “DIY is YOUR Network” over and over until they liked how she said it. Isn’t she so sassy? Just look at her!
She told me a few times, “See? You are NOT that much taller than me.” Did you notice that for the show I have on my Modern Yarn - mudflap girl necklace and then Vickie has it on in this picture? She had seen it in Knit.1 and I told her I’d give it to her after I wore it. The funniest part was when she first came down to me at the table when we started shooting she started talking to me and got completely distracted by the necklace and messed up and had to start over. I said, “You were staring at the necklace!” which totally made her laugh. I was happy to give it to her when we were done. There was a wrap party and we got to hang out, I gave the producers and Vickie some of the coolest Scout’s Swag Bags ever. I asked some of my wholesalers if they wanted to promote their swag and boy did they pull through. Big thanks, again, to Vickie, Sonya and everyone else for everything. It was such a great experience and I hope we can do it again.
It’s taken me forever to write this and now I must run out to a Holiday Party at Superboy’s school. A number of you asked about Supergirl and she’s doing a lot better. She still isn’t 100% but she’s MUCH better. She just ran off to gymnastics with her cool new t-shirt signed by Vickie. I had Vickie sign t’s for both kids and they think they are the coolest things ever. Supergirl said, “I’m showing everyone I have a t-shirt from Vickie of Knitty Gritty.”
What did I forget? Anything? I feel like it’s the longest raqmble ever but I tried to just write about everything. I know there’s more though……I’ll be back.
For anyone who missed it last time, my Knitty Gritty show airs today at 2:00pm EST on the DIY Network. If you want to laugh at me for being the biggest dork ever, set your Tivo’s and check it out. Seriously!
I didn’t sleep last night. I’m totally nervous. It’s finally here. Yep. My show airs today at 2:00pm EST on the DIY Network. I’m borrowing this picture from Vickie because I like it better than the ones I took. The necklace is from 
