Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

Glynis for Glynis

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013

I just got such a lovely note from my mother-in-law! As you may know, all the sock patterns from Sock Innovation are named for family and friends. My mother-in-law, Glynis, has now been the lucky recipient of her namesake socks. I have to share her email and photos with you.

Glynis socks

She writes:

Hi Cookie

The famed ‘Glynis’ socks are here! Attached are photos of the knitter Dorothy G of Mad About Ewe, and the comfy and beautiful socks on my twinkle toes out on our deck at home. Lovely!

When Dorothy and I were out front of the store to take a few photos, no less than 4 ladies stopped to say what nice socks they were – 1 tried to buy them! No way!

I’m wearing them at the moment – ooh-la-la – so good.

Love,

Glynis

What a generous friend! Here is Dorothy outside of Mad About Ewe Fine Yarns in Nanaimo, BC, Canada.

Glynis

Have you done any gift knitting lately?

Another Winner – with Parallelogram!

Monday, January 21st, 2013

Inge from the Netherlands is our last winner for the fall Shapes + Form Knitalong on Ravelry. She has knit up a wonderful bright scarf and hat set that she adapted from the Parallelogram pattern.

Parallelogram scarf

rsz_img_4478

I’m sending out a copy of Connie Chang Chinchio’s latest book, Textured Stitches, as well as a skein of the lovely Alisha Goes Around Richness of Martens (a fingering-weight merino, cashmere and silk blend) in a stunning shade of red. It would make some lovely gloves from the book – or of course a fantastic pair of socks.

Textured Stitches

Gloves

Congratulations, Inge!

Vogue Knitting loves Geometry

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

I just picked up the latest issue of Vogue Knitting (Winter 2012-13) and was delighted to see Radial featured in the Style section on page 14. The headline is Geometry: Experiments with shapes yield bold statement knits, and Shapes + Form gets a mention alongside the designs of Norah Gaughan, Kristin Ford for Shibui Knits, and Bergère de France. Exciting!

Vogue Knitting Radial

 

knit. sock. love now in German!

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

First Finnish, now German.

Knit. Sock. Love. is now available in a German edition with a new cover!

I was actually initially considering this photo (with Sake) for the cover, so it’s exciting to see it on the German edition. Google Translate tells me that the subtitle says “23 clever ideas for unique socks”. I know there are a lot of German-speaking sock knitters out there, and I’m delighted to be able to share these patterns with them more easily!

 

Catching up with the knit.sock.love KAL

Monday, December 3rd, 2012

An astounding 58 members of the knit.sock.love group on Ravelry have completed all 19 pairs of socks from the book in their recent knitalong! All the members who completed all 19 pairs got a prize. I was able to contribute some patterns and copies of Shapes + Form… and a sock club membership to one lucky winner!

This group’s knitalong started almost two years ago with Hedera and Monkey and wrapped up with Sake and German Stocking. Over 300 knitters have participated in at least one month of the knitalong.

There is a really fun thread in the group where club members have stacked up all their socks or made photo collages of all their projects.

These are Sue from Wisconsin’s socks. Her Ravelry username is CO64… sounds like the perfect name for a sock knitter!

Ann from Boston knit up all the socks and made a cool photo collage:

Simone from Germany also made a cool photo collage to show off all her socks.

 

Debbie from Ohio knit all 19 pairs of socks and was the very lucky grand prize winner from the group: she’s won a free membership to next year’s sock club! Check out her project collection here.

Registration for the 2013 sock club is still open and going strong. You can see all of this year’s patterns and yarns to date here and catch up on what current sock club members are up to in the Ravelry group. If you’d like all the fine print on the club, be sure to visit http://cookiea.com/club/.

 

Are you knitting along?

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

Bethany from Ontario is the winner of October’s prize drawing for the Shapes + Form knit-along!

Here’s Bethany in her Slope sweater – it looks great.

Bethany gets a copy of My Grandmother’s Knitting and 5 lovely skeins of Alchemy Synchronicity.

Are you working on a Shapes + Form project? Be sure to join the discussion on Ravelry and post your finished projects to be eligible for prizes!

I have finally finished my Conic sweater in Socktopus Sokkusu-O, in grey. I loved working with Alice’s yarn, which she gave to me when we met up in Toronto earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up of the sleeve decreases:

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be wearing it everywhere.

 

Conic everywhere!

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

I’m seeing lots of great Conic sweaters on Ravelry. Let’s see some Conic FOs!

Judy in Ohio added extra ribbing to make a shawl collar on her Conic, knit out of Madelinetosh tosh merino light. What a great idea!

Wollmeise has been a really popular yarn choice. Birgit in Germany has knit her Conic out of Petit Poison no. 5.

Gus is done – doesn’t Conic look great on her? She used Wollmeise 100% in Aquarius.

Henrike in Germany used Wollmeise in Absinth for her Conic.

Another Raveler, Woollyknickers, has also used a beautiful lavender shade of Wollmeise for her Conic.

And MBeata in Finland has finished hers, too.

Finally, Tracey in Portland, ME is spinning the yarn for her Conic out of a Gotland lamb fleece. It looks so soft!

I’m still working on my Conic, but it’s nearly done. After that,  I think I have to knit Quotient for myself in – you guessed it – grey!

Quotient sizing

Monday, October 22nd, 2012

Quotient is next up in the series on sizing for the garments in Shapes + Form. This is one of my favorite garments from the collection because it’s drapey and bouncy and easy to wear over anything. I have store-bought cardigans that are in a similar shape that I wear all the time, so I’m super happy to replace them with a hand-knit sweater. I’m tempted to knit one in black or grey.

For the sizing notes in the pattern, I recommend a lot of ease because I personally like it that way. You can definitely get away with less ease if you prefer a closer fit. Here’s what it looks like on some “real life” knitters and family members.

Quotient + Rectangle

Quotient + Radial

Quotient on Eileen

Rotation + Quotient

Quotient and Radial

Check out all the photos of Quotient here with measurements for the “real life” models.

 

Rotation sizing and fit

Monday, September 10th, 2012

The Cookie Crumbs KAL group on Ravelry is also hosting a knitalong! Their members chose to knit the Rotation cardigan.

Rotation is a standard-fitting cardigan with asymmetrical fronts. The sizing notes give the chest measurement and suggest choosing a size with 0-4 inches of positive ease. For Rotation, which doesn’t close all the way down the front, you’ll get the most accurate fit by sizing by the cross-shoulder measurement.

I think proper shoulder fit is more important than chest, i.e. a little extra positive or negative ease in the chest is more forgiving but for proper drape the shoulders should hit at the right spot. In general, I would recommend that for all sweaters with set-in sleeves.

So much like I did for Conic, here are some photos of the Rotation cardigan on other people. The sample was knit in the 35″ size.

Rotation is pretty much perfect on me with 1″ of positive ease.

Rotation + Conic

Rotation + Conic

Kathy, who is 5’1″ (with heels on) and slim, should actually be wearing the 32.5″ size instead of the 35″ – see how the shoulders are too large?

Kathy in Rotation

Eileen is much taller than Kathy but is also slim. She might also choose to knit the smallest size.

Rotation + Obtuse

With 5″ of negative ease in the sample, Gus might be more comfortable in the 37.5″ or even the 40″ sweater. A larger size would drape better in front.

Rotation + Quotient

The Rotation sample was knit in The Plucky Knitter Primo Fingering, a merino-cashmere-nylon blend fingering weight yarn. It’s got a lot more bounce than the Malabrigo Sock that Conic was knit in.

You can see all the photos of Rotation on flickr by clicking on the Rotation tag.

Casting on for Conic

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

Veronica, Gus, and I have cast on for Conic, and we’ve been joined by other knitters in the Cookie A Socks and More group on Ravelry.

Conic is knit beginning with the back, which is knit top-down. After the back is finished, you pick up (and cast on) for the sleeves, which are then knit in the round to the cuff. Finally, you knit ribbing all the way around the body.

Here’s the start of my Conic in Socktopus Sokkusu Original.

This is what the finished back looks like.

Veronica has started her Conic in a brown silk and wool yarn.

Here’s Gus’s nifty cast-on photo (hooray Instagram!)  She is using some beautiful Wollmeise sock yarn that she got from her recent trip to Munich. Lucky girl got to make the pilgrimage to the actual Wollmeise shop!

After seeing Veronica, Gus, and I all working on Conic at knit night, Abigail has decided to join us too! She’s allergic to wool and most animal fibers and had a hard time finding an appropriate yarn that wouldn’t set her back a fortune. She swatched some Soie Naturelle from her stash which she hand dyed earlier. She’s still not sure about the color but figures if she doesn’t like it, she can overdye the finished garment. She is getting 5.5 stitches to the inch instead of the 6.5 called for in the pattern. For the back, she will go down a size, but we may need to do some arithmetic for the sleeves.

We’d love for you to join us and knit along on any of the sweaters from Shapes + Form here on the Ravelry group: Shapes + Form Knitalong!