STITCH ’N’ BITCH
A gathering of like-minded knitters who share knitting techniques and friendship with a twenty-first-century twist
STRANDED
See “Fair Isle”
TINK
To carefully undo your knitting stitch by stitch. Basically to unknit your way back to a mistake-free area
YARN CRAWL
The knitter’s equivalent of a pub crawl. Substitute yarn shops for bars and you’ll get the picture
WHO’S WHO IN SUGAR MAPLE
CHLOE HOBBS
The half-human, half-sorceress de facto mayor of Sugar Maple and owner of Sticks & Strings, a wildly successful knit shop. As the descendant of sorceress Aerynn, the town’s founder, Chloe holds the fate of the magickal town in her hands.
LUKE MACKENZIE
The 100 percent human chief of police. He came to Sugar Maple to investigate the death of Suzanne Marsden, an old high school friend, but stayed because he fell in love with Chloe.
PYEWACKET, BLOT, DINAH, LUCY
Chloe’s house cats.
PENELOPE
Chloe’s store cat. Penny is actually much more than that. She has been a familiar of the Hobbs women for over three centuries and has often served as a conduit between dimensions.
ELSPETH
A three-hundred-something-year-old troll from Salem who kept house for Samuel Bramford. She has been sent to Sugar Maple to watch over Chloe until the baby is born.
JANICE MEANY
Chloe’s closest friend and owner of Cut & Curl, the salon across the street from Sticks & Strings. Janice is a Harvard-educated witch, descended from a long line of witches. She and her husband, Lorcan, have five children.
LORCAN MEANY
Janice’s husband. Lorcan is a selkie and one of Luke’s friends.
LYNETTE PENDRAGON
A shifter and owner, with her husband, Cyrus, of Sugar Maple Arts Players. They have five children: Vonnie, Iphigenia, Troy (originally named Gilbert), Adonis (originally named Sullivan), and Will.
LILITH
A Norwegian troll who is Sugar Maple’s town librarian and historian. She is married to Archie. Her mother was Sorcha the Healer, who cared for Chloe after her parents died.
MIDGE STALLWORTH
A rosy-cheeked vampire who runs the funeral home with her husband, George.
RENATE WEAVER
Member of the Fae and owner of the Sugar Maple Inn. Renate and her husband, Colm, have four grown children: Bettina, Daisy, Penelope, and Calliope.
BETTINA WEAVER LEONIDES
Harpist, member of the Fae, occasional part-time worker at Sticks & Strings. Married to Alexander. Mother of three children: Memphis, Athens, Ithaca.
PAUL GRIGGS
Werewolf and owner of Griggs Hardware. He is Luke’s closest friend in town. He is married to Verna and has two sons: Jeremy and Adam. His nephew Johnny is a frequent visitor.
FRANK
One of the more garrulous vampire retirees at Sugar Maple Assisted Living.
MANNY
Another vampire retiree who pals around with Frank.
ROSE
Frank’s and Manny’s love interest. She is also a retired vampire who resides at Sugar Maple Assisted Living
.
SAMUEL
A four-hundred-plus-year-old wizard who pierced the veil at the end of
Spun by Sorcery
. He was Aerynn’s lover and the father of the Hobbs clan.
SORCHA
The healer who stayed behind in the mortal world to raise Chloe to adulthood after her parents died in a car crash. Sorcha is Lilith’s birth mother.
AERYNN
A powerful sorceress from Salem who led the magickal creatures from Salem to freedom during the infamous Witch Trials. A gifted spinner, she founded Sinzibukwud in northern Vermont (later renamed Sugar Maple) and passed her magick and her spinning and knitting skills down to generations of Hobbs women. Aerynn is responsible for the magick charm that enables Sugar Maple to hide in plain sight.
GUINEVERE
Chloe’s sorceress mother. Guinevere chose to pierce the veil after the auto accident that took her beloved husband’s life.
TED AUBRY
Chloe’s human father. Guinevere’s husband. He was a carpenter by trade.
ISADORA
The most powerful member of the Fae. She is also the most dangerous. Currently Isadora is banished from this realm until the end of time but who knows what the future might bring.
GUNNAR
The good twin, he sacrificed himself so Chloe and Luke could be together.
DANE
The ultimate evil twin.
THE HARRIS FAMILY
They were carpenters in life (c. 1860) but now inhabit the spirit world.
THE SOUDERBUSH BOYS
Father Benjamin, mother Amelia, and sons David, William, and John are all ghosts who spend a lot of time on the Spirit Trail, which passes through the Sugar Maple Inn.
SIMONE
A seductive spirit who specializes in breaking up happy marriages. She usually manifests herself in a wisteria-scented lilac cloud.
FORBES THE MOUNTAIN GIANT
His name pretty much says it all.
THE MACKENZIE CLAN
BUNNY
Matriarch, knitter, retired nurse. Born and raised in the Boston suburbs near Salem.
JACK
Patriarch, sport fisherman, retired welder. Also born and raised in the Boston suburbs near Salem.
RONNIE
A successful Realtor, father of four. Married to Denise. He still lives in the town where he was born and raised.
KIMBERLY
Luke’s oldest sister. Kim is a financial analyst, married, pregnant with her first child by husband Travis Davenport. They have been married eight years. She and Chloe form an easy bond right from the start.
JENNIFER
Another of Luke’s older sisters. She’s married to Paul and mother of Diandra, Sean, and Colin.
KEVIN
Luke’s younger brother. He has been married to Tiffany for nine years. They have four children: Ami, Honor, Scott, and Michael.
PATRICK
Another younger brother. He’s newly divorced from Siobhan. They have two daughters: Caitlin and Sarah.
MEGHAN
The wild card of the bunch. Meghan is the youngest of Bunny and Jack’s children and the least predictable. (Her two-minutes younger twin died at birth.) She has the habit of taking up with the wrong guys and paying for it with a broken heart.
FRAN KELLY
Retired administrative assistant to Boston’s police chief. Close friend of the MacKenzie family.
STEFFIE
Luke’s daughter, who was six years old when she died in a bicycle accident.
KAREN
Luke’s ex-wife, who sacrificed herself to save their daughter’s soul.
JOE RANDAZZO
County Board of Supervisors; a politician who is an occasional thorn in Chloe’s side.
JEREMY BREDESON: THE MAGIC OF FIBER
We’ve all read the Sugar Maple books (because, um, how would you know where to find this if you hadn’t). Chloe’s shop has yarn that never knots up. It has amazing colors and perfect substitutions. Literary license goes a long way in making her shop fantastic and fun.
When you take a good, long look at knitting, crocheting, spinning, and dyeing, there’s not much to any of them. Color theory, sure. Manual dexterity. The right combination of tension, needles, yarn, and patience, and voilà! You have created something!
Sit down and think about everything that would go into your knitting. (Yes, I’m going to go toward knitting, because I knit. Substitute your Craft of Choice.) On any given project for me, there’s searching for the pattern, deciding who it’s going to, what color would be best for them, what fiber would be best for them, finding the right yarn, getting the yarn, winding it into balls (because I like center-pull balls), and getting the needles ready. Then there’s the cast-on and actual knitting itself. The mechanics of it aren’t what’s important so much as what you do while you’re knitting.
Magic is a matter of raising and forming energy and moving it into what you need it to do. Intent is important when it comes to magic. It’s also important when you create something with your hands. For the most part, you’re not going to create weapons, unless you’re a blacksmith working for a Renaissance fair, and then it’s usually only because that’s what sells. If you’re a fiber artist, though, some of your projects can take hundreds of hours. Those hours will be filled with laughter, movies, talking, cocktails, coffee, friendship, love. Most knitters will tell you, “Don’t knit angry!” and most of them will tell you that the minute you pick up your projects while you’re mad, you’ll mess something up dreadfully.
And really, when you think about it, we take one reeeeeeeeally long piece of string and make it into something completely not-string. It’s
magic
!
JEREMY BREDESON: NO MORE MOTHS!
We went shopping one night out at one of our local shopping centers, and we found a store that had, just randomly, things to help protect your clothing from moths. We weren’t looking for that, but there it was. Of course, they had the mothballs, but who wants their clothes to smell like those? They also had packages of small cedar balls, so I grabbed a package of those.
We almost walked away right then, but the box next to the cedar balls caught my eye. It looked like it was full of teabags, but when I opened it, the most wonderful smell came out. I was skeptical, because I’d never heard of an herbal mixture that would prevent moths. But my tree-hugging, dirt-worshipper side came out and I knew then and there that I needed to find out what it was. I bought and skimmed the package but it wasn’t until I got home and looked closer that I saw what it was:
Peppermint
Rosemary
Thyme
Cloves
Bingo! I can make that! The only thing that I can’t grow on my own is the cloves, but I can easily buy those. Anyone can grow peppermint, rosemary, and thyme, and then you just dry them and get yourself some DIY teabags from any organic grocer (I bet even Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s would have them) and add a teaspoon or so of each one to the bag and toss one or a few in with your stash. Not only will it keep the moths away, but your yarn will smell good, too!
Incidentally, I keep my stash in plastic shoe boxes and each box has two or three projects’ worth of yarn, a cedar ball, and an herbal sachet in it. It makes my knitting that much more enjoyable!
JEREMY BREDESON is a professional administrative assistant (who has very strong opinions about certain fonts—I’m lookin’ at you, Comic Sans and Papyrus) and the high priest of one of the oldest cybercovens on the Internet, knits like a fiend, and plays video games like a teenager in his copious spare time. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his husband, Leon, and their very spoiled and pretty, pretty princess dachshund, Belle. You can find him at
www.givemamasomesugar.net
(though you may want to turn off your judgments; he has very few filters and has a mouth like a sailor) and on Ravelry as technocowboy.
KALI AMANDA BROWNE: ALL BY HAND, PUERTO RICAN STYLE
There was a time, not long ago, that when a baby girl was born, she got a handmade outfit, whether sewn, embroidered, or knitted. Generally, a grandmother took care of this. If she herself was not a seamstress, there was always an old lady somewhere who could expertly design and stitch and embroider.
By the time the child made her official debut into the world, she was outfitted like a princess. Lace and satin and delicate designs adorning the precious addition to the family.
Today, because of pressures from work and availability of store-bought ready-to-wear, this is not as prevalent. But the more recent immigrants and those who still have ties to their old country (whatever that may be) keep the tradition alive.
My memories of Puerto Rico are replete with rich, beautiful creations by unknown little old ladies that could rival all the European design houses!
Mom was fortunate enough to have one of these talented ladies growing up in upper Manhattan. Doña Maria, who sometimes babysat for my grandmother, had no children of her own but a deep love for them and my mother soon became one of her favorites.
She combined her passions and made the most beautiful things for her ward. For years, she would lovingly create the clothes and accessories that spoiled Mom to the point that she became the style maven she is today.
In my mother’s bedroom there is a photograph of her as a child, standing at the foot of the lake in Central Park. Adding to its sweetly nostalgic essence, the photograph contains more trees in the horizon than high-rises. Front and center is an adorable toddler, all innocence and wearing a pout across her lips, outfitted like a priceless collectable Victorian porcelain doll.
For this park outing, Doña Maria had made a dress. She worked all week, as she did every week, so that she and her husband could have a leisurely Sunday stroll with Mom.