There’s No Place Like Home

The first thing I have to say is this; If you go back and comment on my last post and are not a Canadian, then I’ll put your name into a hat to win a free copy of the Canadian Living December 2009 issue with my Mulled Wine Mitts in them. Comment and tell me where you’re from and what your favourite thing to knit for winter is. 3 winners will be chosen. That’s right, 3! Share the warmth, baby. Comments accepted until Saturday morning at 10 am EST.

(If you’re not in Canada your only recourse is to phone up your – possibly long-lost – friends and relations here to the North and bribe them to send you a copy of the magazine, as the knitting pattern in it is currently available only in that print copy. If and when this changes I’ll let you know. But seriously folks, the cover price for the whole magazine is only $4. It’s worth it for the shortbread recipes alone.)

The second thing I have to say is…Okay, so remember back in September when I said I was going to have a few designs to talk about in the next couple of months? Well lo and behold I’ve already managed to reveal 4 of them, but I have at least one more to tell you about, which is sort-of-new-but-not-really. (I promise to the highest stashly heavens that I’ll return to regular blogging posts soon and this won’t just be an all pattern-reveals-all-the-time, I swear…It is too bizarre how these things coalesce some times…)

So anyhow…Remember back in the summer when I knitted my pair of Wicked knee-highs? Well, as it turns out, so did Michelle from the Sweet Sheep, who dyed the yarn that I used for them. She chatted me up at Sock Summit and was all, “sooo, wanna sell me the pattern and I could totally kit that up so other people could knit it?” And I was all, “absitively, but you know what else we need…we need another colourway.”

And since the first colourway of purple, green, black, is now known as ‘Wicked’, well…I’ll give you three guesses about the second one, and the first two guesses don’t count.

This, my friends, is the ‘Yellow Brick Road’ colourway. Michelle is currently furiously dye-ing away yarn for both of these colourways (there may be a third one in the works…go on, I dare you to guess). And, if you go on over to her blog right now you could win one of these sock kits for free if you leave a comment over there, too. I mean, who could pass up the chance for a free knitting kit, I ask you?

I just love these, I really do. Michelle dyes a wonderful fingering weight – it is a unique base yarn, sort of in between Louet Gems and Socks That Rock, if I were to describe it – and her colours have a very nice mottled quality that really work well knitted up in stripes.

When the kits are available for official pre-order both Michelle and I will be sure to make the announcement. They will have sizing instructions for shaping to fit legs of 12-17 inches in calf circumference, and tips on how to achieve the best fit for your leg. And best of all, they’ll have all 3 awesome colours that you need.

So, that’s plenty of me for another day, I’d say. Go on over and see if you can win yourself a free knee sock kit! And have an awesome Wednesday.