Why, yes, I do have a book or two ....

I guess when you come right down to it the most distinctive thing about me as a knitter is my extensive library. I've been collecting knitting books & pamphlets & magazines for 25 years, and I've always thought that if one is nice, a dozen are much nicer. In addition to the bookshelves in my last post, I have about 9 linear feet of pamphlets & magazines stored in another room. Back in my single days I pored over them and found many patterns I wanted to knit "when I had time." These days, though, it's pretty clear that there will never be enough time to knit all the cool patterns. But I thought it might be a fun use of my library to share some of these wonderful ideas with you all, and maybe also to write some review articles of (for instance) the 5 or 6 books I have on any particular subject.


So here we go. This Missoni cardigan is from the Spring/Summer 93 issue of Vogue Knitting. I have loved it from the very beginning, and I still love it. Looking at it makes me want to cast on for it right now and to hell with the other projects I've got going.

I love how the solid colors and the typical Missoni tweeds work together. I love that black & white band. I even love its drop-shouldered shapelessness.

What I don't love is the yarns. Most of it is cotton; the tweeds are a viscose/cotton/poly blend. I bet the finished sweater weighs 5 pounds. I would like to make it in wool. Several times I've collected yarns to make it with, but they've always been of varying weights & qualities, and I've always chickened out, afraid (with reason, I think) that the final product would not be wonderful.

The obvious answer, of course, is to dye the yarn myself and to spin the tweeds. I hope I will someday. Maybe next winter? Not this year, anyways. (I just checked on Ravelry -- no projects, and in nobody's queue, except mine.)

Off to do some real-life knitting ...