…which is kind of like “start your engines”, isn’t it?
Tomorrow we start our second sock KAL – are you ready to cast on? (I’d ask tomorrow, but that spot in the queue is taken – I’d already promised to show you Delaney’s cover tomorrow.) What kind of socks are you going to knit, in what colour?
I’m going with Cookie A’s Monkey pattern in that cherry caramel colourway from Fleece Artist. I’m curious to see how it knits up.
Tell me what you’re going to cast on!
A meaty topic today – and I’m asking your opinion, so please comment.
I was talking to one of my editors last week, and she told me how the sales team really like to see hotlinks to the online bookstores on an author’s website. I can appreciate that many people are impulse buyers, and such links facilitate that.
Of course, there are sales reps assigned to all the big accounts, so an Amazon link only makes one rep happy. She was saying that it was good to have a link for Borders and for Barnes and Noble as well. Then we talked about Books-A-Million and Powell, and Canadian online booksellers like Amazon.ca and Chapters/Indigo. What about the Aussies? Rosemary’s Romance and Ever After have both been very supportive of me and my books…on and on, the list grows ever longer.
I started to think about clutter! I love webpages that are sleek and simple, elegant and clean. I can’t see getting away with less than a dozen hotlinks on each book’s page and that makes me cringe. Even then, I’m sure someone would be left out.
What do you think of this? Do you follow hotlinks to buy books online?
The thing is that I never do. That’s part of the reason why I don’t currently have hotlinks on my websites. Even if I intend to buy a book online, I’ll open a new browser window and go to my vendor of choice, then search for the book. Chances are good that I already have one or two things in my shopping basket, and maybe I can score free shipping.
I do prefer to support local bricks and mortar bookstores, whether they are independents or chain stores. Lots of bookstores have gone away in recent years, and I do love to wander through real bookstores. That browsing-for-something-surprising on a Sunday afternoon is something that online bookstores will never be able to replicate. I would miss it terribly if it were impossible – and have found some of the most amazing books that way.
Another reason I haven’t done this to date is that independent booksellers – both bricks and mortar stores and online vendors – are often my most vehement supporters. They’re handselling my books and I don’t want to cut them out of the loop by having readers – potentially their customers – follow the easy link and buy from one of the big online vendors. People in the bricks and mortar stores of big chains also hand-sell me, and there’s no way I want any of them to feel unappreciated.
So, what do you think? How do you shop? Do you expect to see hotlinks on an author’s website? If you’re a bookseller, do you find it annoying when an author provides those hotlinks to the big online booksellers?
We’ve had kind of a socky week this week at Alive & Knitting – I hope all of you non-knitters aren’t bored! There’s good stuff coming, including a yummy cover on April 1st, but I’m supposed to sit on the news for a bit. (They tell us that patience is a virtue, but I dunno.)
At any rate, since we’ve been talking about the fabulously talented designer Cookie A, and her amazing sock patterns, I thought you might not know that she has a book coming out. It’s called Sock Innovation. Some wonderful new patterns in there – it’s an April 1 release. There are sock patterns on her site, as well, and we talked about some others out there in the internet in my November post about our KAL.
There’s also been some content on Knitting Daily this week about Cookie and her socks – and oh look, KD is giving away 5 free sock knitting patterns too. You have to register for their site to get them, but it’s free.
The pattern for Caspian Sea Socks is in that group – maybe I’ll try a pair of fair isle socks next. I love that pattern. These are designed by another fabulous talent – Priscilla Gibson Roberts. She does a lot of anthropology research into knitting – her book Ethnic Socks and Stockings has been on my keeper shelf for a long time, although I’ve yet to try to knit any of them. That’s knitterly eye candy!
Lots for you to prowl this weekend. Give me your favourite sock knitting links. (Psst – when you insert a link in a comment, that comment has to be moderated before it appears. Don’t be shocked if it takes a while for me to get to it. Weekends are like that.)
Yesterday, it rained. It’s been springlike, but it got cold and damp, and well, I wanted something warm. In the afternoon, I made muffins.
I love muffins. I have pages and pages of recipes, many with little scribbled notes on the bottom for modifications and variations. I have never mastered the trick of mixing wet and dry ingredients in three turns, so my muffins tend to be small. They don’t always rise to the occasion (so to speak) but they’re good all the same.
Besides the recipes from my mom, my favourites are from several books by Edna Staebler. She wrote a book called Food That Really Schmecks and another called More Food That Really Schmecks, both based on how she’d been taught to cook and how her Mennonite neighbours cooked. They’re wonderful books. If you click through on the link on her name, you’ll find her obituary – she passed away a few years ago. Her books have been reprinted, though, if you feel the need to make some muffins.
Yesterday, I made Edna’s bran muffins and her ginger raisin muffins. Yum!
What do you make when it’s damp and dreary outside? And where are your favourite recipes from?
Here’s the Fleece Artist yarn for my socks – I just have to choose which colour to use.
This is some kind of special yarn for FA – I guess that means they were testing it. The label says “Special – Leba”. It’s 65% kid, 20% wool, and 15% nylon. They only had these three colours and I bought one of each. 425m per skein is lots for sox.
I don’t usually buy three colours in a yarn I don’t know, but this was a limited time offer – just until it was gone. Also, the last time I was at Wellington Fibres, I asked why their sock yarn had no nylon in it. Lorne said that kid – that’s the mohair from angora goats – doesn’t need reinforcement. In fact, he defied me to walk through it.
So, since I’ve been walking through my socks faster and faster, I bought some of the WF sock yarn. It’s still in the stash, probably because it’s a solid colour. A beautiful colour but a solid.
We know how easily seduced I am by handpaints! This Fleece Artist yarn seemed to be just the ticket – kid and nylon in a handpainted sock yarn. Maybe I won’t wear these out as quickly as all of my other socks. (Fingers crossed.)
All I have to do is choose which one to knit first, by April 1. I’m thinking it’ll be the one I’ve named Caramel Cherries. What do you think?