Category Archives: Reviews

Yep! I got a new book. It’s called 1000 Great Knitting Motifs, and I got it at Borders.

Josh and I had just come from REI in Redmond Town Center, where Josh bought a very nice monocular for himself ($30, but he had the return credit for a failed umbrella christmas present). I immediately wanted to go to Borders and remind myself of their knitting section to see if it was better/worse than Barnes & Noble (better). During my browsing I found this book, and Josh agreed to get it ($20) because, “well, I got a toy today, so should you.” As we walked up to the counter, I remembered that I had a few cents left on a Borders gift card that I got from my dad in exchange for cookies, and decided that this would be a good time to use the rest up. When she ran the card, it turned out that there was enough on the card to pay for the whole book! Can you believe it? That was an exciting time, although my attempts to convince Josh that I deserved another book fell on deaf ears. -grin-

Some of the stuff I’ll never use, but there’s a very cute sheep motif, and some other fun stuff (including letters! Messages on scarves? Hmm). The sheep gave me a good idea though. I’m going to get some green yarn, and make some wrist warmers for Josh’s mom (Mother’s Day is coming up and all) with the green background and sheep on the back of the hand. Cute huh? I’m going to use fuzzy white yarn for the body of the sheep, and a cool loop stitch that creates big fuzzy loops. That should look quite cute.

I don’t know what else I’m going to use it for, other than for cool borders and whatnot for my knitted bags.

Oh, and I’ve tried starting the woven scarf two times now. It might be skinnier than I think it will be. At first I used my fun Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns and found a stitch pattern that I liked (for the ends of the scarf) called Honeycomb, but after I did a few rows I decided that I didn’t like it and frogged it. Now I’m trying Moss stitch, which I saw a fellow LiveJournal use, and it looked nice. At least it’s better than Garter stitch. Oof.

I have more knitting news, but since I’m too lazy to take a picture right now I’m going to blog about it tomorrow. There will actually be sunlight for good picture-taking tomorrow anyway.

I have more knitting books! The books I traded BookMooch points for have arrived in the mail today, save one. In addition, Josh and I went back to Pacific Fabrics & Crafts today to buy an extra ball of Bunny Hop, because I think I’ll need it to finish off the baby blanket I’m working on. While there, of course I bought something else: the Spring/Summer 2007 issue of VOGUEknitting international and two shorter darning-type needles for weaving in ends. My russian join is a bit lackluster at the moment because my needle is too long for it.

And of course I wouldn’t talk about any of this without a picture:

From the top:

Jo Sharp’s Knitted Sweater Style: Inspirations In Color
Jane Davis’ Fabulous Felted Hand-Knits
VOGUEknitting International Spring/Summer 2007 issueJenny Dowde’s Freeform Knitting and Crochet
Julie Carles and Jordana Jacobs’ The Yarn Girls’ Guide To Beyond the Basics

And then of course, the yarn and the yarn needles. I’m pretty excited to have these books, they got pretty good reviews from the websites I was consulting.

The last book on the list seems like it might be really useful, because it’s all sweater patterns and the associated techniques that one might need when embarking on their first sweater… something I have yet to do.

In other news, I’m coming along nicely on Kristen/Evan’s baby blanket.

And remember, all of these pictures are horribly butchered thumbnails, they aren’t a smaller full version of the picture. Oh, and of course, because it’s me clicking on the picture messes up the look of the page in a bad way, instead of actually taking you to my gallery url.

But, it is really starting to look nice. I hung out at Tully’s today for a few hours after lunch knitting it and listening to Suki (my shuffle) before I went off to mail another book out with Josh. I really have to get crackin’ on it though and get it done as soon as possible.

I did manage to print out some more .pdf knitting patterns today, to put into my ever-growing ring notebook collection of free patterns that I like. So that is a bit more organized now, which is nice. Although I managed to lose my brain for a few minutes, and hole-punched the patterns, despite the fact that I put them in those little plastic protective sleeves which already have holes. -sigh-

That’s all for knitting news today.

It turns out that my oh-so-wonderful new book Victorian Lace Today has some errata.  Usually that’s not an issue, but when I found out about this errata I also found out that there was more errata in the First Edition of the book than the Second Edition.  Guess what edition I had?  That’s right, the first one.

So I decided that I had to return my book and get the second edition.  Which in the end should be a good thing, because the book is apparently almost $10 cheaper on Amazon, which I didn’t think about when I bought it… kind of an impulse buy at B&N, heh.  New plan is to buy it on Amazon, supposing that I can verify that 1.) There isn’t a Third Edition already released and 2.) They sell the latest edition.

After Josh and I went and returned the book today I went to see if they’d put a second copy out on the shelf, and they had.  And it was the Second Edition.  Not only that, but it said it was a Second Edition inside the book, unlike the First Edition which didn’t even tell me that much.

But alas I didn’t buy it, because now I know that Amazon could be much cheaper.  Did I mention that even the fancy paper at the very front and back of the book changed?  Now it has lace shawl pictures.

I e-mailed Amazon to ask them which edition they sell online (because obviously no one would want to know such information… when hasn’t that info been there anyway?), and they seemed to think that I had to return their copy because I was unhappy with it, so they responded with a form letter telling me to update the book information.  No, I want book information!

I’m done ranting for now.  -sigh-

Oh, and before I go: Schoolhouse Press is very cool, and releases a bunch of knitting books, including the one I’m talking about tonight and tons of other cool ones.  I just had to add them all to my BookMooch wishlist because they’re so awesome.

I got a new book!

Josh and I were in Crossroads browsing Half Price Books, but of course we had to head over to Barnes & Noble soon after, since it happens to be next door. While Josh was busying himself looking at the programming books, I thought it prudent to check out the craft section, which is located at precisely the very back corner of the store furthest away from the door.

That’s where I found my book. I was browsing the well-known sock pattern books that I knew someday I’d want, but I didn’t feel that any were worth buying at the moment. This book popped out, and I absolutely love it. It’s a bit big, because it’s almost coffee-table style, but it’s full of fun historical information.

And oh the patterns! As we know, I’ve been into lace knitting since I found out about it, and I’m always on the lookout for new patterns, which is hard when you have to rely on the free patterns online. The great thing about this book is that the author provides a lot of history on lace knitting in the Victorian era, while also muddling through and figuring out and translating the old Victorian shawl/scarf patterns into something we knitters can understand today. And charts! She provides charts! (Know that the book doesn’t have patterns spelled out, so if you don’t like charts you’re out of luck).

I’ll have to show you one of my favorite patterns from the book that I just have to knit.

549

I know it’s a bit fuzzy, but really, tell me you don’t love it.

I must make this.

When I set up this blog I promised myself that I would have one category for each entry, and that was it. I thought that from my main web page, it would link to specific categories of my blog instead of the whole thing, so people could go and just read stuff about my knitting, or stuff about my music, or personal life, etc.

Well, here we are and I have news about my knitting, in book form! What’s a girl to do? I’ve decided that I was wrong, and that I should just suck it in and post this entry under Books and Knitting. Because, in the end, no one seperates out my journal anyway, and if they did, this entry does relate to both categories.

Okay, on to the news.

I happen to frequent BookMooch quite a lot. I read the forums a lot (although it’s really an e-mail list displayed on the website). Yesterday I thought it’d be a fun idea to unload some points and post an offer on the forums. I’m not the first person to offer up something like this, but either way I offered a full 5 points to anyone who would be willing to give me a knitting book off of my wishlist. My wishlist is choc full of knitting books, so I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to find them.

Anyway, I didn’t really expect people to jump to my deal, considering that pretty much every single knitting book I had listed was also wishlisted by someone else, sometimes 25 people. Apparently I was wrong. I got an e-mail within 10 mins of my posting, which didn’t end up panning out, but still. The whole of yesterday was spent e-mailing various people back and forth while they searched their house to see if they had books I wanted.

It must have worked, because so far I think I’m down to 55 points from 70.

I got a great deal going with the third guy to e-mail me, Jason. First book, Fabulous Felted Hand Knits, by Jane Davis. Second book was The Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting by Marianne Kinzel. Both should be totally awesome books, because you know what other activity I spent all of yesterday doing?

Reading knitting blogs.

Because of that, I ended up finding a knitting blog devoted to reviewing knitting books, which led me to add tons of them to my wishlist. Which led me to get the idea of putting up a deal in the forums, which ultimately led me to this blog post. Woo!

So the other person I was conversing through e-mail with was a little different. Her name is Zoe, and she’s really nice and seems really happy, and just happens to have a huge stash of knitting books and yarn and notions that she (I think) inherited, and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to use them all. Anyway, she also e-mailed me back about the deal, and I’ve gifted her 5 points already. She even offered to send me an extra book along with the one I originally wanted, just to be nice! -grin- Very nice of her indeed.

Anyway, after the second week of April she says she’ll be in a better position to trade with me, so we’re going to talk to each other then about trading yarn/books. Should be fun.

From her I’m getting The Yarn Girls’ Guide To Beyond the Basics by Julie Carles and Jordana Jacobs. And because she’s so nice, she’s also sending me a Jo Sharp book, Knitted Sweater Style: Inspirations In Color. She says she has two copies of the last one, so she doesn’t mind.

That’s enough about knitting books. I’m going to go make pretzels and dance along to my shuffle.