12 Interweave Knits and 1 Lucky Knitter

The Great Clean-Up continues. I have twelve back issues of INTERWEAVE KNITS (by far my favorite knitting magazine) and I'm looking for one kind-hearted knitter who will take them off my hands. They range from 1999 to 2003 or so, all in pretty darn good condition.

I'm having email trouble (so what else is new?) so leave your entry in comments and I'll assign you a number then let the RNG do its thing.

I almost forgot: the RNG will do its thing tomorrow night.

Tomorrow morning, however, I'll be doing a phone interview with Cheryl Nason, The Dallas Book Diva. I can't wait! Check out her website. There are some terrific reviews and MP3 interviews available.

Butt Ugly Socks

I knitted the ugliest pair of socks on the planet last week. I don't know if you remember but I cast on for a pair of Regia Silks a few months ago and kind of let them drop. A normal run-of-the-mill pair of cuff downs in my basic boring pattern. Plain stockinette. Gusset heel. Round toe. I wanted soft, comfortable, and functional.

What I got was butt ugly. So ugly that I don't want to show them to you. But the damn things are so comfortable that I'm wearing them right this second. They look like deflated pink footballs. The Regia Silk has no spring-back. You stretch these puppies and they stay stretched until their next go-round in the washer/dryer. They look limp, exhausted, baggy, saggy, sad and lonely and middle-aged. (Which, come to think of it, describes me right this second.)

But I love them. I can't believe I'm typing those words but it's true. I love them. They don't itch. They don't pinch. They're heaven on the feet even if I'd rather die than show them to you.

It's almost time for CASTING SPELLS to be released into the wilds of bookseller land and I am quite honestly freaking out. I looked around for a more elegant way to put it but freaking out describes my state of mind best. I'm pushing toward the end of the sequel which is helping to take my mind off the fact that after what seems like forever it's time to loosen my stranglehold on the book and set it free. I don't do that very well. I try but it's hard to admit that this whole post-writing process is completely out of my control.

So far things are looking good. I'm doing an interview with DallasBookDiva on October 20th. PW gave the book a terrific review; RT Book Club named it a Top Pick; a starred review from Booklist. CASTING SPELLS will be a "Fifty Books You Need to Know About" pick for November at Barnes & Noble. And other interviews, etc., are in the works. All good, right? So why does my stomach hurt so much that I can't sleep nights? I wake up literally in a cold sweat around three a.m., thinking of all the ways in which I could have done a better job. I want to pull the book back and rewrite it, make changes, hang on to it a little longer.

But I can't which is why I've been a knittin' fool these past few weeks. What have you been up to?