Monday 14 May 2007

Currently knitting: I've been gradually working my way through Danica. I think this scarf will be a birthday present for a friend in June.

I've been dying to try out illusion knitting. Except instead of a DNA helix I'd like to slip in a a reference to the original subversive knitter, Madam Defarge (Dickens). Must remember to finish projects before starting another! I still have a partially started sock and I want to knit another jumper for my friends' 3-year-old and maybe a jumper for myself...

On the Amazon wish list: My favourite blogger Crazy Aunt Purl is releasing a book in October. I am addicted to CAP as she is affectionately known by her readers. Her writing is hilarious and touching and sad and meaningful (often all at the same time) and so true that it just rips your heart out and is just begging to be made into a Bridget Jones-esque style film. After 10 years of marriage, CAP's husband walked out, telling her he needed to get his creativity back. Two weeks later he moved into a new apartment with a new girlfriend. CAP had a few girlfriends of her own who stood by her, coaxed her out of her house and into a knitting group and put up with some really bad cooking as she went through the ups and downs of rebuilding her life and becoming a self-actualised person. And she kept a diary of the process.

We never find out what happened to Mr X, but CAP found her own creativity, built up a readership of 10,000 people and got a book deal, all to the cheers of thousands of women and some men from around the world. She's now campaigning on all the other important issues like why do stores turn up their nose at stocking a basic collection of women's clothes in a wide range of sizes. Anyway, go to her site and read her blog from the beginning. And I bet you end up putting her book on your wish list too.

Book that should be burned: As a reader and book lover I don't generally advocate destruction but this particular volume is an insult to readers, knitters and human beings in general. It's a collection of photos of has-been and never-were so-called celebrities and their scarf "patterns" nearly all of which are "cast on X stitches and knit every row". Yep, we really need a book to tell us that.

Although if they did another volume and it included photos of Paris Hilton accidental strangling herself with a garter-knit scarf... well, I could be tempted :)