At long last, it is publication day for Socks From the Toe Up. Considering that the majority of my work on this book was completed over a year ago, it seems like I’ve been waiting forever! I hope those of you who purchase it enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The very awesome Aimee has already put all the patterns from the book up on Ravelry, so if you are a Raveler, you can start queuing projects by visiting the patterns here.

In other news, I have washed and blocked all the sample socks from the book in preparation for taking them on the road with me to book signings and classes.

I’ll be posting all public appearances as they are scheduled on my Travel and Teaching Schedule page (accessible via the link at the top of this page.) There are a lot more events in the works, and they will be added as soon as they are confirmed and all plans are finalized.

Nothing To Do With Knitting, But Totally Worth Watching

Click this link to go to YouTube (embedding is disabled so you have to go to YouTube) to watch an amazing video of Ms. Susan Boyle’s audition last Saturday for the British television show, Britain’s Got Talent. The video has been watched over 3 million times at the time I’m writing this, so you may have already seen it. If you haven’t, go now! It’s an ootch over 7 minutes long but worth every second. I’ve watched this a number of times over the past three days  — just amazing. If you can watch it all the way through with dry eyes, you’re a stronger person than I. Susan Boyle is my new hero.

Back to real life here, Teddy is modeling:

And Lucy is still enchanted with her fuzzy rat!

I can see from the voting that Sprucey Lucy is the clear winner for the name of my new sock design. And in celebration, I finished the first Sprucey Lucy sock on the train this afternoon.

Knitting on the second sock will commence soon.

Yesterday was a busy one! I was insanely busy working on a stealth project on a tight deadline, along with a few hours of badly needed housecleaning. I did take time out for lunch, though:

Before:

After:

In the interests of full disclosure, I bit the ears off my bunny (the other one is the KOARC‘s bunny) Saturday night. Okay, I bit my bunny’s whole head off as well, right after taking the second photo. I ate the rest of him for lunch on Sunday. Nom.

Knit Purses!

I have in my hot little hands a copy of this book:

One Ball Knits: Purses, by Fatema, Khadija, and Hajera Habibur-Rahman.

This book has patterns for 20 handbags, each of which requires one ball or skein of yarn.

There is a great “Basics” section that discusses yarn weights and types, tools, and step-by-step illustrated instructions for stitches and techniques. Check out a sample page:

The purses are divided by seasons. Here’s my fave from each season.

Spring:

Summer:

Autumn:

Winter:

Aren’t they cute?

Would you like my copy? Leave a comment to this post telling me so by Thursday, April 16, 2009, 4:00pm EDT and the Random Number generator will select a winner.

Don’t know how to comment? If you are looking at the page and see something that looks like this after the post:

Click on the “x Responses” and it will open the post in its own page — scroll down to the bottom of the page until you find the “Leave a Reply” form and fill that out, then click on the “Submit” button. That’s all there is to it!

Lucy sez:

Yeah, easy for you people with opposable thumbs!

The word for the day is:

Busy!

I’ll be back tonmorrow.

I selected my five favorite suggestions for a name for my new sock design from those left in the comments. Vote away!

 Loading ...

My New Box Bag

Yes, I have several 3AM Enchantments bags. No, I don’t need another bag. Then I checked this week’s shop update at The Loopy Ewe.

How could I resist one with Dala horses on it?

I mean, seriously.

I love the zipper pull, too.

Knitting For Your Health

Check out this video from the CBS Early Show:

Watch CBS Videos Online

Thanks, Cali for emailing the link! I love that you can clearly see the second Mason-Dixon Knitting book in the background in the LYS footage. I’ve been to that LYS — did a book signing there for my first book. And I do believe I recognize one or two of the knitters there!

Lucy Is . . .

. . . soooooooo sleepy!

I saw snow flurries on my way to work this morning.  What’s up with that??

After I got to the office, I saw that the sky was looking pretty dramatic.

Cool, huh?

I started a sock with my lovely Tempted Good Grrl yarn in the “Lucky Lucy” colorway.

I need a good name for it — anyone have any ideas?

I also started a new stealth project, and I’m in the middle of putting together a big pattern order for The Loopy Ewe, so progress may be slow on my bloggable project. Just so you know.

In the comments to yesterday’s post, Cindy asked:

Do you ever get ‘designer block’?

I do, from time to time. But I have a pool of potential designs to fall back on when this happens.

When I get inspiration, it usually comes by the bucketful (and usually at 1:00 a.m.), so I chart up a bunch of potential designs while my Muse is with me. Then when I’m feeling uninspired but want to start a new design, I sift through the Potentials to see if there is something that jumps out at me. Currently there are 107 potential designs in my Pending file. Not all of them are viable, of course — possibly only 50 – 60% will ever come to fruition. But I think those are pretty good odds.

Sometimes I see a skein of yarn and get a good idea of what I want it to become, though. That was true of the yarn I’m using now. I wanted columns of a dainty lace pattern that was sort of Spring-like (even though there were freaking snow flurries this morning).

Attention All Spring Flingers

Are you going to The Loopy Ewe Spring Fling later this month? Just a heads up that Sheri will not be selling my book (or Cookie A’s book) at the Fling. She made this decision partly because The Loopy Ewe does not sell books as a rule, and partly because it seems like most of the Flingers have pre-ordered anyway.

(Sheri is going to or has already posted this info on the Spring Fling board on Ravelry.)

So if you want a copy of Socks From the Toe Up and would like me to sign it, please purchase it beforehand and bring it to the Fling. I’ll be happy to sign it there.

Meanwhile, Lucy is just hanging around . . .