Smiling ear to ear...

I have so many reasons to smile this week. First of all, Cookie A's book, Sock Innovation, is out! If you're a sock knitter and don't have it--go buy it! Not only are there some pretty cool patterns from Cookie A, she goes into a lot of detail on how to design your own. I knit the sample for Bex (ravelry link) that's in the book. Cookie wasn't kidding when she said that the socks would be closely inspected. There are close-up shots of Bex in the book of the stitch pattern and of the heel area. Bex was my first sample knit and it was weird sending it off in the mail after I finished knitting it. I just sent off another one today. You'll probably be seeing it sometime next year. ;-)

Other things to smile about? Being asked to design something (by someone I look up to) is very exciting! Details are still being discussed, but it looks good so far. Asking if I will wholesale my patterns? Also very exciting! Now I need to figure out the printing costs and details for that.

Besides the sample knitting that became a priority last week, I'm still knitting a few of my own designs. This one was finished right before the secret project and after going through a few name changes I'm calling it Bug Parade. I initially thought that the center motif looked like spiders, but they grew wings after blocking. ;-) The smaller stitches on the sides are the leftover cicada wings that can be found everywhere after they've invaded an area. The first year that we moved here was a cicada year. I remember waking up one morning and wondering what that really loud humming sound was. It was all of the bugs digging into the trees around our house. Ewww. They left so many wings and body parts behind. Ewww again. After living here for almost 10 years, we haven't had another cicada invasion like that. We were told that it happens about every 17 years. I have no idea who came up with that number, but we'll see.

I've been in a bug mood lately. All of the stitch patterns that I've seen or tried resemble some kind of bug to me. It must be a spring thing when all of the creepy crawlies come out when the weather gets warm.

Details:
Pair # 40 in the 52 Pair Plunge II.
Pattern: Bug Parade by me
Yarn: Enchanted Knoll Farm in Esmerelda
Needle: size 0 (2mm) Knit Picks Classic Circular
Method: magic loop, 2 at once, toe-up with Turkish cast-on, short row heel, 1x1 twisted rib
Start: March 26, 2009
Finish: March 29, 2009

This pattern will be written up...sometime. I still have 11 pairs to go in the 52 Pair Plunge. I do have 2 pairs of socks on the needles already. I started a pair called Shifted 8 and found them a little bit too big for me, but perfect for my sister. I've started another pair with an altered stitch pattern and am calling it Shifted 4. So far, I like this one and I've been working on it a lot more than the 8 variety. Pictures to come in a few days...