In my book, Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 7: Spinster , my heroine Lena is recovering from sickness and uses her favorite shawl to keep warm. 🧵 Click here to download the FREE PDF of the pattern. Here’s the short excerpt from the book that mentions the shawl: 📖 Excerpt from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 7: Spinster Lena still felt a chill as she sat in the sunlight streaming through the window of the Viponds’ drawing room. She was swathed in her favorite lace shawl, a gift from Melinda, who had knit it in Lena’s favorite color, red, along with cream and pink stripes. Tabitha finished pouring the tea and handed her a cup. Lena tried to smile as she took it, but her face felt stiff, like hardened clay. She was an utter failure. Despite all her training as an agent, she’d been undone by a malicious woman and a locked balcony in the rain. Had she given up too quickly? She’d been deterred by the railing, believing it would have broken under her weight. She had also been shivering t...

I grew up using tissues to blow my nose, but when I started reading Regency romances in high school, I became fascinated with the handkerchiefs those ladies were always fluttering around. Unfortunately, there were ZERO handkerchiefs in my parents' house (even my grandmothers didn't have any old ones that my grandpas might have used), and in those days, there was barely an internet, much less internet shopping. When I went to Japan one summer, I was given a handkerchief by my host family, and I loved it. I bought more as I got older. The prominent ones I could find were the utilitarian cotton type mainly used by men, so I ended up buying bandanas and using those as handkerchiefs. Then I went back to Japan on a trip with my parents and saw some absolutely lovely handkerchiefs being sold in a stall at Nakamise Shopping Street in Asakusa in Tokyo, on the grounds of Sensoji Temple. They were really thick woven cotton with pretty patterns printed on them. I still use them to...

In Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 6: Martyr , Aya lends Keriah a pair of fingerless gloves since the room is so cold. I had a stitch pattern in mind, but not a yarn to use, so it took me a little while to knit this. I eventually decided to use a yarn that isn’t anything like the yarns available in the Regency, but it’s such a pretty yarn I didn’t care! The yarn is a Knit Picks Special Reserve yarn called Japanese Color Twist. I know that the colors were dyed by Japanese artisan dyers. It looks like they dyed the wool roving, and then the roving was spun into the yarn creating this wild colorway. The name of the colorway is Harajuku, which made me laugh since it’s exactly what I’d expect from the Land of Cosplay. The lace pattern is named “#79 Kind of Wave Running Across (very pretty for a purse),” originally published on pages 171-172 in The Lady's Assistant, volume 2 by Mrs. Jane Gaugain, published in 1842. ( You can download a scanned .pdf of the 5th edition of the book,...

Hahahahaha! My husband, Captain Caffeine sent me this cartoon. The Asian and the knitter in me loves this one: My parents taught me to use chopsticks at an early age so they’re pretty comfortable for me. Did you know there are differences between Japanese and Chinese chopsticks? The Chinese ones tend to be blunter and more slippery whereas the Japanese ones are pointier and sometimes have a textured tip to make it easier to grab food. My mom will eat salad with a chopstick, which I have to admit is a bit easier than a fork, for me. Any of you knit? Any of you use chopsticks?

My novel, The Lone Rice Ball , is in the multi-author box set, Once Upon a Starry Night , a Christian contemporary romance collection. Also in the box set is my friend Jan Thompson’s novel, Let Me Hold You . I made this pattern for her to celebrate our box set being released. It’s the crossbody bag worn by Jan’s character Maggie. You can download a free PDF of the pattern here (no email necessary). See this pattern in Ravelry. If you are savvy with a sewing machine, you can make a cloth lining and sew it to the inside. If you use a stretchy fabric, you can take advantage of the stretchy nature of the bag. If you leave it unlined, you can take this bag to the beach and easily shake the sand out of it. I happened to have a D-ring and buckle, which I used to make the strap adjustable, but you don’t need these to make this bag. You can simply sew the end of the strap to the bag rather than using the D-ring. If you have a D-ring but not a buckle, you can do a (YO, k2tog) in the ...