A Good Yarn - Softcover

Debbie Macomber

4.13

23,315 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0778301435 ISBN 13: 9780778301431

Publisher: Mira, 2009

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This is another heart-warming tale of friendship from the bestselling author of "Thursdays at Eight". When times are tough, confiding in friends can change your life. Cancer survivor Lydia's business is thriving but her dream-man's ex is threatening their relationship...Retired, self-contained Elise has lost everything and lives with her daughter, but still has disturbingly strong feelings for her gambling ex-husband. Nervous Bethanne is an unwilling divorcee whose husband left her and their children for a younger woman. She urgently needs a job, but has she the confidence to find one? Lonely teenager, Courtney, feels abandoned too. Grieving over her mother's death, she has put on weight and dreads starting a new school.

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About the Author:

Debbie Macomber has more than 100 million copies of her books in print, and her stories about home and family have a worldwide audience and have been translated into twenty-three languages. In addition to being a #1 New York Times bestseller in fiction many times over, she also has an enormous following among knitters as the author of dozens of pattern and craft books. In 2008, she launched a branded line of knitting products through Leisure Arts, the company that publishes her knitting guides. Debbie and her husband, Wayne, have four children and nine grandchildren, and split their time between Washington State and Florida. This is Debbie’s second picture book co-authored with Mary Lou Carney; their first, The Truly Terribly Horrible Sweaer . . . That Grandma Knit, was published in 2009.

Linda Emond's credits include The Sopranos, all four Law & Orders, and American Experience: John & Abigail Adams. On Broadway: 1776 and Life x 3 (Tony� nomination, Outer Critics Circle Award). Off-Broadway appearances include Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul (Lucille Lortel Award, Obie Award).

"Making a sock by hand creates a connection to history; we are offered a glimpse into the lives of knitters who made socks using the same skills and techniques we continue to use today."

—Nancy Bush, author of Folk Socks (1994), Folk Knitting in Estonia (1999) and Knitting on the Road, Socks for the Traveling Knitter (2001), all published by Interweave Press.

LYDIA HOFFMAN

Knitting saved my life. It saw me through two lengthy bouts of cancer, a particularly terrifying kind that formed tumors inside my brain and tormented me with indescribable headaches. I experienced pain I could never have imagined before. Cancer destroyed my teen years and my twenties, but I was determined to survive.

I'd just turned sixteen the first time I was diagnosed, and I learned to knit while undergoing chemotherapy. A woman with breast cancer, who had the chemo chair next to mine, used to knit and she's the one who taught me. The chemo was dreadful—not quite as bad as the headaches, but close. Because of knitting, I was able to endure those endless hours of weakness and severe nausea. With two needles and a skein of yarn, I felt I could face whatever I had to. My hair fell out in clumps, but I could weave yarn around a needle and create a stitch; I could follow a pattern and finish a project. I couldn't hold down more than a few bites at a time, but I could knit. I clung to that small sense of accomplishment, treasured it.

Knitting was my salvation—knitting and my father. He lent me the emotional strength to make it through the last bout. I survived but, sadly, Dad didn't. Ironic, isn't it? I lived, but my cancer killed my father.

The death certificate states that he died of a massive heart attack, but I believe otherwise. When the cancer returned, it devastated him even more than me. Mom has never been able to deal with sickness, so the brunt of my care fell to my father. It was Dad who got me through chemotherapy, Dad who argued with the doctors and fought for the very best medical care—Dad who lent me the will to live. Consumed by my own desperate struggle for life, I didn't realize how dear a price my father paid for my recovery. By the time I was officially in remission, Dad's heart simply gave out on him.

After he died, I knew I had to make a choice about what I should do with the rest of my life. I wanted to honor my father in whatever I chose, and that meant I was prepared to take risks. I, Lydia Anne Hoffman, resolved to leave my mark on the world. In retrospect, that sounds rather melodramatic, but a year ago it was exactly how I felt. What, you might ask, did I do that was so life-changing and profound?

I opened a yarn store on Blossom Street in Seattle. That probably won't seem earth-shattering to anyone else, but for me, it was a leap of faith equal to Noah's building the ark without a rain cloud in sight. I had an inheritance from my grandparents and gambled every cent on starting my own business. Me, who's never held down a job for more than a few weeks. Me, who knew next to nothing about finances, profit-and-loss statements or business plans. I sank every dime I had into what I did know, and that was yarn and knitters.

Naturally, I ran into a few problems. At the time, Blossom Street was undergoing a major renovation—in fact, the architect's wife, Jacqueline Donovan, was one of the women in my first knitting class. Jacqueline, Carol and Alix, my original students, remain three of my closest friends to this day. Last summer, when I opened A Good Yarn, the street was closed to traffic. Anyone who managed to find her way to my store then had to put up with constant dust and noise. I refused to let the mess and inconvenience hamper my enthusiasm, and fortunately that was how my clientele felt, too. I was convinced I could make this work.

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