Adventures with sticks and string.
First of all, I’d like to announce that Donna from Muskegon, MI is the winner in the drawing for the Cookie A sock book. Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing.
I got home yesterday from my annual retreat to the mountains. I snapped just a few photos early yesterday morning to share on the blog.
Miss Lucy was, of course, very pleased to see her momma when I got home!
Cookie A. very kindly sent me an advance copy of her new sock book Knit. Sock. Love. Actually, she sent me two copies so I could keep one for myself and give one away. Let’s take a look.
The book contains nineteen patterns and they are arranged into three sections: Columns, Tessellations, and Diagonals.
You can see photos of all these sock designs on Ravelry, here.
Some of the designs will look familiar to Cookie A. fans. The wildly popular Monkey and the Clandestine and Hedera designs that were originally published as free patterns at Knitty.com are included, but more sizes have been added for some of these previously available designs. Several of the other designs have also been available as single patterns from Cookie A.’s website and other retail outlets (like The Loopy Ewe) for a while. There are, of course, some new patterns, seven of them to be exact.
You have several buying options — you can purchase the single patterns from Knit. Sock. Love. from Cookie A.’s website, or you can download a pdf version of the whole book, or you can purchase the hardcopy paperback book and get a deep discount on the purchase of the pdf version of the book. The hardcopy version has a release date of November 20, 2010.
I have hard copies of the book and have been looking through it. First off, the photography is lovely — that is obvious just from looking at the cover, which I particularly love. The patterns have many charts and useful schematics to help you in your knitting.
There are artsy photos:
And great close-ups:
And of course, these are Cookie A. socks — lovely unique designs. They range in difficulty from easy to challenging and are offered in a nice range of sizes.
Who would like to win a paperback copy of this book? Leave a comment to this post by 4:00 Sunday, November 7 at 4:00pm eastern time and the random number generator will choose a winner then.
I’ll not be back on the blog until Sunday or Monday because my visitors will be here shortly and we are going away for the weekend. I hope you all have a great one!
Today is the publication day for my Toe Up Socks in a Box. Wheeee!
Would you like to take a look inside?
As you can see, it is in card format, and there are six categories of cards:
The tools and techniques cards have information on — you guessed it — tools and techniques for toe-up sock knitting. Here’s a peak at the heels technique card:
As you can see, it folds out, so there’s lots of information on every card.
The pattern cards are similarly formatted. A photo on the front:
Knitting instructions inside:
And the chart on the back
The patterns included are:
So you get 20 sock patterns (taken from my two toe-up sock books) along with cards that advise you on tools you need, techniques for knitting on different types of needles, how-tos for toes, heels, and bind-offs, advice about knitting to fit, and my slip-stitch heel template with instructions for knitting this heel in 6 different sizes.
So that’s it in a nutshell — I mean box. Sorry I have none to give away — I have only one box myself (I gave my other copy away in a give-away a few weeks ago).
But I can tell you the winner of the Knitting Wild Animals book — it is Karla. Karla has been emailed and has responded. Thanks to everyone who left a comment.
Tomorrow I have another book review with a giveaway, so be sure to tune in then!
Lucy is resting up because we have special visitors coming to stay tomorrow. 
Welcome to November. And in my neck of the woods, colder temperatures! Hurray! I can tell it is officially cold when Lucy gets on her sheepskin for a nap instead of her silk pillow by the window (though she did both over the weekend).
I got a nice chunk of knitting done yesterday, though most of it was on my stealth project, so no pix. But I can show you the front of my Almost Hawthorn pullover, which I also worked on yesterday.
Don’t forget, you have until tomorrow at 4:00pm eastern time to leave a comment on last Thursday’s post to be entered in a drawing for the adorable Knitted Wild Animals book. And on Wednesday I’ll have another book review for you and a chance to win a copy of the book being reviewed, so stay tuned for that.
Public Service Announcement
This may seem obvious to many of you, but judging from the number of emails I’ve been getting lately, it is not obvious to everyone. I am in no way affiliated with the Wendy yarn company and the patterns they publish. I can’t help you with problems with their patterns, tell you where to find any of their out-of-print patterns, or help you find one of their yarns. Their website is here (found via a google search).
Lucy thinks she is being stealthy.
