Good Stuff

I received my winter issue of Knits today. I'm kind of surprised because I had thought that maybe I had let that subscription lapse. I'm really glad that I didn't though. I've liked Knits better than Knitter's for a quite a while now, and I think I've blogged about my reasons before. For me, knitting is not simply a hobby. I feel like knitting has greater dept than a hobby. It goes with organic gardening, homecooked meals, and comfortably furnished cottages with white picket fences; it goes with walking on the beach or in the woods. I liked Knitters when it first came out because it seemed to represent that. Here's this old woman (Elizabeth Zimmerman) on one of the first covers, and then you find out she lives in a convert barn out in the country! There were historical pieces about knitting in Cornwall or Wales and knitters who raised their own sheep. Now I feel like Knitters is too slick. It reminds me of Vogue a little bit, and I don't particularly like Vogue either. Knits came out just when I was starting to feel that Knitter's wasn't the magazine I had liked for so long. I liked Eunny Jang's blog before she became editor of Knits, and she seems to have brought her style with her. There's such a nice mix of somewhat trendy pattern ideas that I can acutally see myself or my daughter wearing, an historical article or two, and wonderful classic pattern to consider knitting or just enjoying. Knits has embraced technology without givng up the down-to-earth approach that make me like them in the first place.

What's the yarn sitting there on top of my magazine you ask? Why it's two skeins of Claudia's Handpainted Yarn in Baby Girl that I ordered from the Loopy Ewe on Wednesday night, I think it was. I am almost a Loopy Groupie which basically means that I have spent way too much money on sock yarn lately. I've been finding so much inspiration lately though too. Of course, there are my favorite blogs like Wool Windings and Willow Way Knitting to name a few, but I've also discovered Kniity Chick's Sock it to Mepage, Monica Knit..A Lot, and Yearns for Yarn. I even ordered one of Monica's great patterns this week.

I knit a lot of little pumkins this week, but I also started on my loksin socks. I like the pattern although I'm not sure that my sock look like some the others I've seen.

I haven't even joined the Anne of Green Gables Knit Along, but I've been reading the books, which got me to thinking about other old favorites of that genre. I love A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich, a Nebraska author. I only had a beat-up paperback copy, so I ordered this library edition from Amazon. It was $5.00. I'd say that was worth it. I guess it's obvious that I love "old" books.