Susan B Anderson doesn’t look old enough to have four or five published books and a kid in college. Knitting must be a great preserver, erasing lines of age from the face and lending a youthful lilt to the voice.

I thought all of this as I listened to Susan speak at the annual Minnesota Knitters Guild Tea this afternoon. You listen to someone like her and suddenly the idea of earning a living writing knitting books seems more approachable. She started very simply, with a few original designs and an email to a publisher…a publisher who loved her stuff and seems to have been very nurturing of its budding talent. I don’t know how common that experience is. I’m used to hearing much grimmer stories. It’s heartening.

Susan brought dozens of adorable knitted toys to share with us, including a set of ingenious reversible toys. Those “topsy turvy” toys remind me of the Popples I loved in he ’80s. There was a cat that reversed into a mouse and a bunch of others I can’t recall. But I laughed at them all so they must have been good.

Next chance I get, I’m going to check one of her books out at the library. I’m inspired.