Jeanne's Winning Sock - and the Best Team in the World

Congrats to our very own Jeanne for winning 2nd place in the lorna's laces sock pattern contest. Jeanne is one half of the 2 Askew Design team and has been knitting her b&*^# off for months now... she just submitted a design to Interweave for the coolest gloves - and we're keeping our fingers crossed that they decide to publish the pattern. She is one talented lady and we are lucky to have her as our store manager! (I only selfishly hope she doesn't get too wildly successful - and then leave the store in pursuit of knitting fame and fortune - we'd all be soooo sad!!!)

In store other news, I want to publicly thank the entire JBW team for their INCREDIBLE work over the last week. You see, last Friday (the 16th), i received a phone call from a major cable news network station (name to be revealed later). For some crazy reason, they wanted to come to Reno and film a short (3-4min) segment on our store and business. And they were wondering if we were available on Tuesday (yes, 4 days ago). Um, ok, sure... come on over (like we'd say 'no' - LOL).

Seems fine, right? That gives us 4 days to clean up and get prepared. Except that we just received 62 boxes of Rowan Sale yarns - and another 10 boxes of Crystal Palace Sale stuff... and the store was a wreck!! There was yarn EVERYWHERE!! (Sidenote - when am i going to learn to keep my camera in my purse? I should have taken photos, so you could see how crazy it was!).

Plus, Doug and i had to go to Sacramento on Friday for a luncheon and a meeting with the co-author of our upcoming book... (it was 106 degrees, btw - a sharp contrast to the 2" of snow that is on my front deck this morning - see photo) .

Yep, we're writing a book... i can't tell you the details yet, but hope to be able to share them in about a month, once we've finalized the publishing deal. We've been working on this for about 5 months now and are SUPER EXCITED!

Ah, i digress... so, the news company called and asked us if Tuesday would work. The shoot would likely take most of the day.... (they kept warning us, as if it were a problem!). With doug and me gone, we were completely reliant on the A-Team and their yarn shop cleaning abilities. Let me just tell you, when i walked into the shop on saturday, my jaw dropped. It looked like a different place. And it was looking better every single second - Diana, Sally and Katie (the sat crew) were hustling around, making sure the yarn labels were all facing the right direction - and that the counters were clear, the models were in the right places, etc. It was amazing!! These girls (plus Darcy, Rachel on Sunday, Jeanne on Monday) really pulled through for the team. They are superstars. Because they did such a terrific job, doug and i were able to stay home and work on a script - on what interview questions we expected - and what our answers might be.

Tuesday arrived - and we met Max (from the unnamed network) around 8am at the shop. Within a few minutes, were were miked up and ready for the interview. A few hours later, we transitioned to showing him around the shop. In the pic above, i'm talking about the Breast Cancer Scarf Kit that we put together (and is going to be in the October issue of Vogue Knitting - i forgot to tell you that!).
After being shown around, he filmed 30 minutes of a knitting class that we had going on that day. There's ashley on the left - and jeanne sitting next to her!! Around 12:30, we called it a day - Max had gotten about 90 minutes of footage and was charged with editing it down to 3 minutes by May 27th. The piece should run sometime between the 27th and 30th (um, ok, the reason for the secrecy? I'm super nervous that i looked and sounded terribly goofy... is that bad? we'll let you know where to find the video once we've seen it - plus, we're always a little paranoid that if we get too terribly excited about something, it will never happen. but i promise that we'll share soon .)

Anyway, things turned out super well (or so we hope!) ... the next day, we all (well, sans Doug) went for pedicures and had Carolina BBQ and pecan pie (i love NC BBQ) - and celebrated. Thanks TEAM!!! (p.s. remind me to tell you about the election hats that allison - the other half of 2 Askew & the teacher of the class above - designed. they're adorable!)