For nigh these 30+ years, my Augusts have gone thus: 

Week 1:  Get ready to
go to The Beach

Weeks 2 & 3:  At
The Beach (basically, a family festival that lasts up to 18 days)

Week 4:  Come home
from The Beach and get unloaded and unpacked, sorted out and laundered up  — 
then get back in the saddle as quick as you can because everything starts  up again in the fall!

And while it is my basic policy not to write about “not
writing about knitting” in my blog, I do feel I need to explain a 3-week
silence!  No catastrophes, just a lot of
life (in a good way).  And, certainly,
though I had a hiatus from writing about knitting, I did not let my needles lie
idle.

Okay, they did not get as much action as usual.  Perching on a log on a windy beach, sitting
next to a 3-yr-old who is having pancakes and syrup for breakfast, savoring a
rare clear sunset, along with a cold beer and some really excellent clam strips
– well, there are times to leave one’s knitting in one’s bag.

I did do some
knitting, of course.  And Sarah and I did hit “Yarn For All Seasons” which is
a delightful yarn shop in Newport
(hit it twice, actually, and hit it hard!). 
And what, in hind sight, I think is particularly cool, I wore my knitted
garments a lot.

 I enjoy wearing them
and it is particularly satisfying to find these vibrant pieces to be of such
practical use.  I have long enjoyed
ceramic teapots, cups, bowls, vases, etc. that are shaped like flowers,
vegetables, animals, etc. – and I think it is the coming-together of whimsy and
practicality that pleases me so much. 

If anything can be called my niche in knitting design, it
would be this philosophy of wildly delightful pieces that can be part of one’s
everyday life.  This is the direction I
have been traveling – spurred by my own natural enthusiasm for things beautiful
and bizarre, as well as an eclectic and somewhat experimental sense of style –
for years.  And now I feel ready to take it
as a Purposeful Purpose, something to share more broadly here in my blog and in
other venues.  This is a beginning – as I
said, things start up in the fall!