My upcoming book is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Publication date is April 14, 2009. Thanks to reader Tracy who just pointed it out to me!

(The cute little canary toy that Opal sent Lucy  is made by Super Fun Pet Stuff, by the way. It looks like they’ve got lots of alluring pet toys. I think I’ll be doing some holiday shopping there!)

As I was knitting thew gusset and heel on my Halcyon Sock yesterday, I noticed something going on with the striping that usually does not occur for me.

One side:

The other side:

Usually if I get a pool on one side, there’s no stripe on the other. I think this is very cool.

The sock is coming along nicely — I should finish it tomorrow.

Knitting Purls

Do you all know about the e-zine Knitting Purls? I found out about it recently because its creator is one of my Plurk buddies. It is delivered via email and contains all sorts of good stuff. To subscribe, send an email to infoATknittingpurlsDOTcom.

Music Contest

It is official. The winner has been chosen: Mindy, who in comment #248 suggested “Stranglehold”” by Ted Nugent. Thank you to everyone who offered music suggestions!

While I did not purchase “Stranglehold,” it reminded me that I wanted to get “Little Miss Dangerous,” so I did.

I logged into the iTunes store last night, redeemed my gift cards, and purchased 52 songs. Wanna know what I bought? I posted the list here.

If that list looks lacking in a lot of areas, bear in mind that I already have a whole lot of music, and this is just what I got yesterday. Thanks again for all your great suggestions! I’ll probably not need to go on a music-buying spree for a while now.

Sorta scary story:

I recently got an iPod Touch and was showing it to a much-younger coworker who is into electronic toys. We were flipping through the album covers and came to one by the Rolling Stones. She said (I kid you not) “Isn’t Rolling Stone a magazine?”

Kids today . . .

Lucy’s New Toy

Lucy has a new toy, very kindly sent to her from our friend Opal. It’s a canary:

I offered it to Lucy:

She likes it!

She likes it alot.

She might have gone a little nuts over it . . . 

Lucy sez: “Thank you, Ms. Opal!”

Opal recently opened an Etsy shop, by the way. Check out the gorgeous handspun BFL I got!

YUM.

I just love creating a slipstitch heel, particularly in handpainted yarn.

Perhaps I am simple, but I love watching the color variations emerge as the heel flap grows.

Yep, I am turning the heel on the first Halcyon sock. Excitement abounds!

By the way, I sent a whole scad of patterns to Sheri last week, so (as I write this) all my current patterns are in stock at The Loopy Ewe. I’m working on my new patterns, so I’ll be sending those to The Loopy Ewe soon, I hope.

I Love Rock and Roll

Again, thanks for all your suggestions for songs to download from iTunes. You have until midnight tonight to make a suggestion in the comments to Monday’s post. I’ll draw a name at random tomorrow, and the winner will receive the WendyKnits sock pattern of his/her choice, plus yarn to knit it.

As I said, the majority of what was suggested I either already have, or don’t like. I’ve got all the Beatles, Who (and Pete Townshend), Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Elvis Costello music that I love. I’ve got a number of random British bands from the ’60s and a lot of American ’60s music, and all the ’80s pop and New Wave and Punk that I like. I’ve got REM and Live (I don’t think anyone mentioned Live) and Graham Parker (and I don’t think anyone mentioned him either). Et cetera, et cetera. And more and more. And so on and so on. I was impressed that a couple of you mentioned King Crimson, by the way.

What I don’t have and won’t have is Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Little Feat, and the Grateful Dead because I don’t like them. Ooh, you know what I need but don’t have? Ian Dury. I wonder if there is any Ian Dury (with or without Blockheads) on iTunes? Must check . . .

But from the 500 comments so far, I’ve made a list of about 60 songs that jumped out at me as ones I need that I don’t have, so you all have been very helpful to me.

Now, back to my sock.

And here is Lucy in what I call her “hen on a nest” pose.

. . . because many, many (I might go so far as to say most) of the songs/artists you suggested are ones I already have in my iTunes library!

But there are some you’ve mentioned that I don’t have, so you’ve given me a good list to work with and I thank you for that. For example, I can’t believe it has never occurred to me to get Carole King’s Tapestry.

When I was in high school, I took art classes because I had high hopes of becoming an artiste (which clearly did not work out). In my sophomore year, we had a record player in the classroom and a teacher who did not mind if we played music during class. We had two albums: Godspell and Tapestry, which we played over and over and over, for the entire school year. The result of that is that I run screaming in the opposite direction whenever I hear anything from Godspell, but I am instantly transported back to being a teenager and the fun I had in that art class when I hear anything from Tapestry.

A Time-Suck of Epic Proportions

Thanks to the lovely ladies at Mason-Dixon Knitting, I found the link to this site, where you can do cool things with photos. Like this:

Anyhow . . .

I started a new sock. Shocking, isn’t it?

Because it is hotter than all get-out here, I am happy to be knitting with Wollmeise in the am kalten Polar colorway, which, if the Google translating tool is correct, means “Arctic cold.”

Because this yarn stripes, I wanted a pattern that was relatively simple, and this one fits the bill nicely. It’s a very simple lace pattern I doodled up. It doesn’t “fight” with the striping, but adds a little interest, I think.

I’m calling the pattern “Halcyon Socks.” Because I like the name. 

Some of you who have not experienced Wollmeise first-hand have asked if it is all it is cracked up to be. I think it is. The colorways are to die for. The yarn base is very interesting — it is a multi-ply and I don’t think I’ve seen another sock yarn that uses the same base. The one drawback is that if you are not careful, you can split the plies while knitting. But I find that I can adjust my knitting style slightly to accomodate that and have fewer problems. Also, I look at my work a bit more frequently (I tend not to look at my knitting while I knit socks) and that way catch and fix any splits, though I’ve not had many.

I’d be looking at my work more frequently anyway because the yarn is so darn pretty!

And now, for no particular reason, a photo of my giant fortune cookie!

Please note that this photo was taken last Friday and the fortune cookie (ahem) is no longer looking like this.

And of course, here is a pic of Miss Lucy.

These are my two tickets to paradise.

A total of $50 in iTunes gift cards. Woo! I got these gift cards with reward points from my credit card. Now comes the hard part: selecting songs to buy.

I open up the iTunes store fired up with good intentions but when the store is open in front of me, I can’t think of what I want to buy. Any of you have that problem? Want to help me out?

I want to buy classic rock from the 1960s through 1990s. Leave a comment to this post suggesting a classic rock song from that time period, and I’ll enter you in a drawing for a WendyKnits sock kit — pattern of your choice plus the yarn to knit it. One comment per person, please, but feel free to suggest multiple songs in your comment. I’ll draw a name on Thursday and announce the winner in Thursday’s blog post, so have your entries in by midnight this Wednesday (July 23).

Thanks!

And hopefully some of you will suggest songs I don’t already have.

Here we have a Smoke and Mirrors sock.

Knit from Cherry Tree Hill Select Supersock in the Java colorway, on 2mm needles. There was a question in the comments — is this entrelac? Nope, it’s just yarn-overs and decreases. Actually pretty darn easy to knit! There is a second sock, but can I find it right now? No.

About Lucy and the Mouse

In the video I posted yesterday it looked as though Lucy was eating the tail of her catnip mouse. She didn’t actually eat it, and we were watching her the whole time. She is usually not interested in yarn at all, and never tries to eat it. I was a little surprised that she showed such interest in her catnip mouse’s tail, but itwas no doubt the catnip fumes that befuddled her.

She looks a bit more composed here!