One of my dreams is to have a room dedicated solely to books. I picture myself like Belle, blue dress, rolling ladder, zooming from one end to the other searching for that perfect book. Then I consider the reality, getting my skirt caught in the rungs, wear-and-tear on floors, and accidentally clipping the cat. I literally dream about having a larger house for more books, and it always leaves me slightly annoyed in the morning. A bit irritating to dream about something that is so not in the financial cards right now.
As it is, I’m running out of fiber books to discuss. Both my Alice Starmore books still sit on the shelf, but she scares me. She, or at least she used to be very particular about her patterns, from what colors she wants you to use to how and where you adapt her work. I know I’m quite small town as far as knitting blogs go, but from now on she will henceforth be known as The Scottish Knitter. Just kidding, please don’t show up at my house, Alice! An easy problem to fix, sure, but storage does become a bit of an issue. Matter of fact, though, I have Cheryl Oberle’s Knitted Jackets on the way. I also ordered Atlas Obsura’s travel guide. I could spend hours on that website. Each link leads to another fascinating place.
Anyhow, reading Wendy Johnson’s Wendy Knits reminds me of Atlas Obscura in the narrative style. It reads like a diary in which pages patterns are interwoven. She discussed her early days of learning how to knit, what she was thinking while writing the patterns, and what was going on in her life to inspire them. At the time the book was written she was working in Washington, D.C, so it’s a nostalgic trip for me to read it, because I went to college in DC and spent quite a lot of time in the area. She even mentions Knit Happens, a sadly now closed yarn shop that was one of the very first proper local yarn stores (LYS, doncha know, in fiber terms) I got to visit. The patterns range from a simple ribbed scarf to a steeked and multi-colored Ingrid pullover. In my opinion most of the knits are on the simple side, but sometimes you just need something that doesn’t stretch your skills to the limit.
She’s since then published two other books, both on sock knitting. Hmm…something to consider looking further into, as soon as I make a hole in the time-space continuum for storage space.