Wednesday, April 20, 2016

April Reader Who Knits: Marci Bailey

It's time to meet another fellow knitter who knows the value of a good read! DestiKNITters, meet Marci Bailey.

Marci, are you working on right now?
I’m getting toward the end of my Hitofude sweater in Miss Babs Katahdin. It’s a great pattern – an easily memorized lace repeat with some extra skills like provisional cast on and three-needle bind off. The rows are so long now that each takes 20 minutes!

What feels like your favorite/greatest knitting accomplishment?
Definitely my recent La Scala sweater; I’m wearing it in the picture. It was 14 months on size 1 needles. Two colors, each with two strands held together and intarsia on the knit and purl sides. I don’t think I’ll embark on another sweater with intarsia on the purl side again.

What feels like the worst knitting mistake/foible/wrong choice youve ever made?
Like most knitters, convincing myself that a gauge swatch is “close enough.” Close enough is not good enough when it comes to a hand knit sweater gauge. I have a sleeveless cotton sweater in my closet that is gigantic and waiting to be unraveled and knit again.

Straight needles or circular?
Circular, no question.

Metal or wood needles?
Metal.

White chocolate, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate?
I’ll take a side of dark chocolate with my metal circs!

Coffee or tea?
Coffee, always decaf, with a square of dark chocolate.

Whats your favorite Allie novel?
Family Lessons. Always love a strong female character and happy ending for children.

What are you reading now?
Dirty Love by Andre Dubus. I recently read House of Sand and Fog and saw him speak at our town library. I bought the book there, and he autographed it. His writing shows beautiful attention to detail, and he was quite an engaging speaker. I also learned he wrote a short essay about learning to knit, featured in the anthology, Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting

Do you have a favorite knitting character from a book, movie, or television show?
When Dumbledore said he loved a good knitting pattern, I loved Dumbledore even more!


Give a shout out to your favorite local yarn store: 
My favorite local yarn store, Another Yarn in Winchester, MA, is in the process of relocating, because a burst pipe ruined the store and all the beautiful yarn. 

I like the funky vibe of: 
Yarns in the Farms
641 Hale Street
Beverly Farms, MA 01915

It’s not really local, but whenever I travel through western Massachusetts, I tried to find an excuse to stop in at WEBS, because how can you drive by yarn nirvana without going in.

Marci chose a copy of The Doctor's Undoing for herself and A Heart to Heal for her friend.  Marci also gets 10 hanks of Cascade 220 in Silver Grey for being featured.  If you'd like to be in a future Readers Who Knit or Readers Who Crochet feature, email me at allie@alliepleiter.com for details.

1 comment:

Vicki Caruana said...

Great interview. Marci is fabulous.