the power of advertising...

Around 9 a.m. this morning, my phone rang. I went to look, fully expecting a wrong number or one of those dumb sales calls. The call display showed a 705 area code, Northern Ontario, east of here. Picked up, said hello.
‘Is this Mary Anne Oger?’
A timid yes was my reply.
‘Do you still write books for machine knitting?’
Ye-e-s.
‘Oh good. I’d like to order your simple edges book.’
O-kay, do you have a title on that?
‘Yes, it says here, Fifty Ways to Love Your Knitter, a collection of bands, edges, trims and I’d like your other one, Casual Classics.’

Wow, I haven’t heard anyone mention that pattern booklet in quite some time. Turns out she’s looking in Canada’s fashion machine from 1995. We get into a little chat about the state of machine knitting, how she’s been trying to get a group together locally, has seven machine, really loves it and even tried to have a class at the local college to get people interested. She asks if I put on seminars - I quickly say no but I am happy to come and teach. I ask if she reads my blog and she says no, she’s not much into the computer but she’s sure her husband could find it for her (she’s never heard of Knitwords). Can she send me a cheque and is my mailing address the same? I give her my new one (for the past 8 years only) and, because I feel like this is almost an out-of-body experience, I fail to mention the likelihood of Canada Post being on strike. She's probably not in a hurry...