This Week OTN, and Some Good Books

I should be working on all my unfinished projects, but couldn't resist playing around with the Latvian weaving charts. Here is a picture of some socks I started with the sport-weight cone yarn. Don't ask me what I'm going to do when I get to the heel, because I just don't know. I don't want to wimp out and stop the pattern at the heel. It depends on how ambitious I feel when I get there, I guess.

Last week I read a very interesting book--Threading Time: A Cultural History of Threadwork, by Dolores Bausum. The first chapters are particularly good, tracing the importance and significance of textiles from the creation story, through the spinning and weaving traditions, down to the present time, with particular significance to the role of women in making the "fabric of society."

I also worked my way through a stack of McCall's Needlework issues from the '50s that a relative found in her basement. This magazine really has no parallel in present-day knitting magazines. I sure wish this was still being published, along with Mon Tricot. I used to buy both regularly, and still have a lot of copies.

All this reading material has made me think a lot about why we knit, and what we knit. Like so many of you, I make things for other people more than for myself. Threading Time brought home to me how almost holy it is to create clothing for the family--how it's a labor of love and significance. McCall's Needlework seemed to understand what most of us want---many patterns for children, men, the home. I'm getting frustrated with knitting magazines that have multiple patterns for teeny-tiny cardigans and maybe a pair of socks or some lace. Lovely things, but not things most of us are willing to pay $7 an issue for. Doesn't it seem like the world is getting more and more narcisisstic, just when we need to be the opposite?

I don't want to get on a soapbox here, but there's got to be a reason why we enjoy making dishcoths so much. A mundane, simple thing that can be so beautiful and fulfilling.

I also am continuing to read through Anita Shreve's books, and just finished A December Wedding and have two of her others waiting in the wings. I also read Joy Fielding's book "The First Time," about an estranged couple who decide to make a new commitment to their marriage when the woman finds out she is dying of ALS. A tear jerker. LOL

My efforts at creating patterns from things my grandmother taught me to knit and crochet are continuing, and I hope to finally have some of them up in a few days. I don't want those things to die with me!

Hugs to all.