Oh frabjous day!

The Sock Report is here!

I am thrilled to have a new pattern included in the premiere issue of this new publication, a quarterly e-magazine from the genius mind of Janel Laidman and her hardworking editorial partner (and part-time model!) Miriam Pike. The patterns and photography and styling are all stunning, showing off the beauty of Rustling Leaf Press's Oregon environs. Magnolias, rhododendrons, and windswept pebble beaches? With a romantic lace shawl? I'm SO there...

See what I mean? This shawl is probably my favorite design from the collection...and it's not even mine!

That's actually Miriam modeling the Cassian shawl right there. I must admit I have some hair envy going on when it comes to Miriam's beautiful chestnut ponytail in these photos, too. Janel reports that Miriam has special ponytail powers, and I believe it. I want to go around wearing ink-blue lace and tea-stained silk and a magic ponytail everywhere now myself...life would be so dreamy if I could!

The best part is, I feel like I don't even have to plug my own design. The whole Sock Report collection is priced at $16, and each designer gets royalties on collection sales --a rising-tide-floats-all-ships pricing model I haven't encountered before, but really like. It benefits the buyer, the designers, and the publisher all the way around. (I had the vague idea that someone always has to lose in marketplace transactions, but I haven't figured out who loses here. Good thing I'm an information scientist and not an economist. If anyone needs help preserving their knitted goods, I'm totally on it, though.) Individual patterns are also available at $6.50, so buying the 16-pattern collection amounts to an 85% discount, or a bargain-basement $1 per pattern! Amazeballs!

So even though I'd rather you DIDN'T buy it (buy the collection, so the whole Sock Report Volume One team wins!) here's my contribution: the Clio jacket, which is worked up in Lorna's Laces Sportmate. This color combo has a lovely Alice-in-Wonderland feel, and I think looks especially springy with the apple-green shirt they styled it with. It'd also look great with a sheath dress or a simple cami and a pencil skirt for work.

I thought a lot about color combinations when I was working this up--the prototype is actually a tone-on-tone mix of dark gray and silver, as you can see in this swatch and concept sketch. But I would love to see this design worked up with crisp navy trim on a white or cream ground, or in fire-engine red and a darker crimson or poppy red combo. Ooh, or what about celadon and jade green?

The yarn I swatched with is Knit Picks Gloss, which is a little finer than the Lorna's Laces Sportmate that final version ended up in, but still a sock yarn. Which leads me to my last point about how great The Sock Report is: It's about sock YARN, not just socks! I love, love, love the weight of yarn that's often sold as "sock yarn"--but I only like, like, like actually knitting socks with it. The Sock report, on the other hand, is a just a perfect mix of socks, shawls, scarves, gloves, and garments in fingering-weight or sport-weight yarn. It kind of reminds me of Marilyn Monroe trying on that tiara in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes": "You DO wear it on your head! I just LOVE finding new places to wear diamonds!"

It also makes me really glad they didn't call it "The Fingering Report"...;-)