First up, the winner of my review copy of  Classic Elite Shawls, Wraps & Scarves: 20 Ideas * 3 Ways is Cathie Jones, who has been emailed.

I’ve got a couple more books waiting to be reviewed. Here’s the next one up:

This is Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Hat Book: History * Technique * Design, another Sixth&Spring book. As you may have cleverly deduced from the title, this is a book about knitting hats. And it is pretty darn comprehensive.

The book starts with a brief history of knitted hats, including an interesting “then and now” mosaic of different hat types:

Many different type of hats and how they are constructed is covered, along with information on fit and measuring, yarn substitutions, blocking, etc.

And then there are 51 patterns for hats.

Some of the patterns have appeared in the pages of Vogue Knitting magazine, but many have not. By my count, 35 of the patterns are new.  I think there must be a pattern for everyone.

Rather than post a few random photos of some of the patterns, here is a link to the book’s page on Ravelry.

My bottom line — awesome book with great patterns!

And now I have some rainbow knitting to do.

And Lucy appears to want her dinner.

“Feed me, dammit!”

ETA: I am not doing a giveaway for this book. It’s a large hard cover that does not fit into a flat rate priority envelope so it would be rather expensive for me to mail out!

I am still knitting along on my Rainbow Viajante.

I used up my first skein of yarn (238 grams-worth) and have started a second skein. I’m not sure how big I will make this, but I am thinking another 18 – 20″ in length. I’ve got tons of yarn, so can knit until I’m happy with it.

I’ve got a few new books to review, so I thought I’d do one today.

This is Classic Elite Shawls, Wraps & Scarves: 20 Ideas * 3 Ways, a Sixth & Spring book. It’s a book of wraps with a twist: each idea is worked in three different ways, so for the 20 ideas you get 60 patterns. Nice, huh?

The idea can be a color, a stitch pattern, a technique, a fiber type — you get the idea. Here’s a couple of pages from the Table of Contents:

This is the selection of patterns for the short row idea:

The patterns all use Classic Elite Yrns (the title gives that away) and they are all clearly written, some with charts, some without. There is nothing terribly complex here, but a lot of very pretty wraps for you money.

Who’d like my review copy?

To be entered in a drawing to receive my copy, leave a comment on this blog post by noon Eastern Time on Wednesday, May 1, 2013. The Random Number Generator will select a winner from among the comments.

Lucy is having her usual Sunday here.

First of all, I need to announce the winner of my review copy of the book This Belongs to Me: Cool Ways to Personalize Your Stuff by Anna Wray. The Random Number Generator chose Angie, who has been emailed. Thanks to everyone who submitted a comment to be entered in the contest. Keep reading, because I’ll have more books and products to review and give away!

I attended and taught at the Loopy Ewe Spring Fling at the end of last week and was fortunate to travel to and from Colorado in-between snow events. It was the first Colorado fling, and my first visit to Loopy in Colorado. A good time was had by all and I was as usual too busy teaching to do anything like take photos.

I designed a shawl pattern as a gift for the attendees, and now that they all have copies, I have offered it for sale on Ravelry. You can find my sideways short-row shaped shawl, Colorado Spring, here.

Contrary to my usual modus operandi, I did knit on the plane so managed a fair bit of progress on Viajante.

In answer to a question in the comments, the rainbow colorway is colorway “EQ.”  In the same comment my opinion was asked about who has the best selection and price for Kauni yarns — my answer is that I don’t know. What I do know is that the rainbow colorway is pretty popular and tends to sell out first.

In response to another comment, yes, my mouse is on the left side of the computer and yes, I am indeed left-handed!

Here is a close-up of the increases.

I am doing my increases for Viajante by knitting to 1 stitch before the center stitch, then I knit in the front and back of that stitch, and then again in the front and back of the center stitch. It makes a pretty increase, I think.

Apparently Lucy missed me and sulked while I was gone. I was very happy to return home to her. Happiness is a purring kitty!

Tomorrow I am heading to Colorado to teach at The Loopy Ewe Spring Fling. I wanted a nice mindless project to work on while socializing, soearlier this week I decided to cast on Viajante.

The pattern calls for 1 skein of Wollmeise Lacegarn and I happen to have a fair amount of that in my stash, so I selected a skein and got knitting.

That’s Wollmeise Lacegarn in the “Spice Market” colorway. That photo shows my progress as of yesterday morning.

Here it is as of this morning.

Notice anything different?

For whatever reason, I was just not feeling the love with the Wollmeise yarn. Odd, since the original was knit with that. So I ripped it out last night and restarted it using Kauni Effektgarn 8/2 in the Rainbow colorway. Yes, I am knitting with rainbow yarn . . . again. I am more than a little obsessed with this yarn.

I wound up a skein that weighed 238 grams, which by my reckoning is around 1050 yards. I have plenty more rainbow yarn in stash, so if I reach the end of this skein and don’t feel as though my Viajante is long enough, I can keep on knitting.

Viajante is a pattern that is very easy to adjust. I went up a couple of needle sizes for the re-knit because the Kauni yarn is heavier than the Wollmeise Lacegarn. So instead of using U.S. size 3 and 4, I am using size 5 and 6.

So that will be my weekend knitting.

Lucy sez:

If I stay in Momma’s lap she can’t get up and go away this weekend!

I have another book to review today, but not a knitting book. Last month Running Press contacted me to offer me a list of crafty books for review. I chose a few, and the first one arrived this week.

This is This Belongs to Me: Cool Ways to Personalize Your Stuff by Anna Wray. It is a book of ideas and projects for kids and teens on ways to personalize their belongings, from sneakers to lampshades.

The book contains 14 projects, in three different categories: Clothes, Accessories, and Room.

Each project uses a different technique or design style, which is explained in detail with examples. There is a blank workbook page with templates where kids can come up with and practice their own ideas, then step-by-step instructions for how to implement their original ideas, including tons of illustrations, a list of all materials needed, tips and tricks, and of course clear, easy-to-understand, illustrated directions.

This is such a fun idea and would be great, I think for kids age 9 or 10 and up. Who’d like my review copy?

To be entered in a drawing to receive my copy, leave a comment on this blog post by noon Eastern Time on Sunday, April 21, 2013. The Random Number Generator will select a winner from among the comments.

Lucy is not eligible to enter.