Knit. Sock. Love.

Knit. Sock. Love.
Image used with permission

A true labor of love, Knit. Sock. Love. is the latest book from the mind of Cookie A. The look and feel of the book is beautiful and sings the praises of Cookie and her attention to detail--believe it or not, this is a self-published book.

So here's the deal--the physical book and a full PDF of the book are available and if you buy them together you'll receive an $11 discount.

Talk about the ultimate in flexibility--you can have the PDF available from whatever compute device you use, you can search the PDF, and you can print out a pattern and mark it up as needed. But if you're like me you'll also want the book. There's something very satisfying about holding a book in your hands, feeling the weight of the words and photos, and admiring the physical qualities of the product.

The book is gorgeous and full of beautiful photos by Laura Kicey with multiple photos of each of the 19 designs that are uniquely Cookie. Of the designs, 7 are new and the balance have been re-worked and re-edited. All but one are worked from charts. As you would expect, all of the patterns are innovative and have the undeniable CookieAesthetic.

Cookie also devised amazing diagrams that show where each stitch pattern section is used and where they appear in relation to the construction of the sock--the diagrams are like 3D models that are cut open and shown flat.

Think: Industrial Engineering meets Knitting. Genius.

Although I haven't knit a pair of socks from K.S.L. yet, I feel like I know them all intimately. You see, I was the Technical Editor for the book. I had the pleasure of meeting many of the new patterns before they were named.

Some socks were not that difficult to check while most required fairly extensive charting to keep track of the pattern changes and stitch counts. Then there were those "other" patterns (I'm looking at you, Wedge). That was the one that required me to practically knit an entire mini-sock to make sure I could understand what was going on with all the short rows. If you're not familiar with Wedge, take a look at its diagram on page 99 and you'll get an idea of the difficulty in understanding where you are in the pattern without actually knitting it. My head couldn't do it, but with needles and yarn it all made sense.


Wedge diagram
Image used with permission

Now that the book is out in the wild, I'm combing discussion groups to see if anyone's reporting errors. That is where my anxiety lies now, not with deadlines or checking and rechecking numbers and sizes and formatting and page numbers and styleguides and checklists.

Knit. Sock. Love. is the most challenging Tech Editing job that I've had to date and is absolutely without a doubt the most rewarding. Thank you very much for including me Cookie, I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to contribute to the book.

Knit. Sock. Love. describes this collection perfectly.

Bobbin's Nest Studio is hosting a book-signing party for K.S.L. this Saturday. Unfortunately I can't be there (and I'm really not happy about that!) but hopefully you can go.

Holiday Cookie A. Party and book-signing
Saturday 12/4 from 4-6pm
Bobbin's Nest Studio
1171 Homestead Rd, Suite 130
Santa Clara, CA 95050