It's a Circus! A Knitcircus!

Today is a rather exciting day for me. I have a my very first guest blogger. I'm so thrilled, I've got my yarns in a knot! My guest of honor today is, Jaala Spiro, Editor-in-Chief of Knitcircus Magazine.

Sit down, have a cup of tea or coffee and read all about Jaala, her friends and their adventures in publishing a knitting magazine. I'm always impressed by how small groups of determined women seem to be able to accomplish so much good. Be sure to leave a comment to win your opportunity at a year's subscription to this online magazine and 4 pattern collections. The luscious photos in today's post, courtesy of Knitcircus magazine, are just a taste of what awaits in the Knitcircus, Issue #9, Spring collection.

I won't keep you waiting any longer. Here is Jaala and the story of Knitcircus:

As a massage therapist specializing in chronic pain, a wife, mom to a three-and-four year old and ardent knitter and sewist, I had plenty to do when Knitcircus first started. A friend and I had been publishing an old-skool Zine for moms of young children for a couple of years and we sensed that it was time to move on.

One day I got a chance to read the Vanity Fair special Africa edition, and went outside to sit on our concrete step and think. So much need in the world (you see that every day, Rudeek!); what can one woman do? How could we send just a tiny bit of the affluence around us to help out other people?

Then it hit me—knitters! Knitters are a generous bunch and can always find a little bit extra for a ball of yarn or a magazine….Yes, that’s it, we’ll make a knitting magazine! I wanted to be able to help people out, but not bring other people down. A knitting magazine would provide something fun for knitters and with any proceeds, we could pass on the good cheer.

Of course, local charity means a lot, and we do as much of that as we can, but I knew that the amounts we raised wouldn’t be huge, so decided to target Heifer International and KIVA because each of them help people learn and improve their lives and each of them allow people to pass on the gift to others as they succeed.

Fast forward two years, and what started as something printed on my laser printer grew into a glossy magazine distributed to LYS’s, and now we’ve made the leap to cyberspace! Now with my kids in school, Knitcircus is my full-time job, and with the help of creative and dedicated women like MS. SABLE, Enid, Cindy, Miss T, Ada, Amy and Erica, we’re getting better and growing all the time. The online debut, Issue #9, Spring, is our biggest and best issue yet; it’s a free magazine including interviews with Terri Shea, Lily Chin and Liesl Gibson, a free sewing pattern, articles and reviews, plus pattern previews for 20 original patterns(three free downloads). To knit the patterns, people can purchase the Pattern Collection here for quite a reasonable price.

We’re very excited to move online, because now we have room for lots of full-page photos of our designers’ work, we can go all over the world without stamps and we can have as many pages as we want.

To celebrate our big move, we’d like to offer not only a Spring pattern Collection pdf download, but a year’s subscription (4 Pattern Collections) to one lucky reader of Nurse Rudee's blog. Please check it out; three rings of knitting, sewing and fun, now with less paper!

Thank you for visiting today, Jaala. The spring issue is a work of art!

Make sure you check out Knitcircus and don't forget to leave a comment to win this subscription. I'll be closing comments on Friday, March 12th at 11:59 PM, EST and the winner will be selected by the random number generator and announced on Saturday, March 13th. Good luck!

Even though there is no baby around here, I HAVE to knit that adorable little green dress. HAVE.TO. I'll find a baby to wear it, somewhere.