Book Review: Gorgeous Knitted Afghans

Title: Gorgeous Knitted Afghans

Author: Fatema Habibur-Rahman

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Date: 2004

Publisher: Lark

ISBN: 978-1579903534

Illustrations: full-color photos

“Gorgeous” is the word for this book. The influence of Indian art is conspicuous. Very bright, clear colors, jewel tones and actual jewels, tiny sewn-on mirrors, make Indian textiles “gorgeous”...and that’s the look of many of these afghans.

Not all of them are bright-colored. There are some subtle effects worked in soft-colored yarns too...but there are enough jewel tones, beads, mirrors, paisleys, and mandalas to make it clear that the three sisters from Bengal are celebrating their artistic heritage.

That’s not the only Islamic Indian influence I see in this book. Why afghans rather than sweaters or shawls? Two cultural factors are involved. One is that, when people learned to knit “in the old way,” they didn’t buy and store a lot of fancy pattern books; they memorized simple “rules” for knitting whatever they wanted to knit, and learned patterns from “samplers,” which might be used as blankets, table runners, rugs...or afghans. The other factor is Muslim modesty. You can recycle these patterns into shawls or sweaters if you want to, but nobody is demeaned by having to pose for a picture in this book. The photos show afghans draped across chairs.

Then there’s the way the sisters write. Their use of English words, including knitting terms, is not incorrect; it’s foreign. Gorgeous Knitted Afghans was edited by its American publisher so that the directions are easy for Americans to use, but some of the discussion is...well...easier to follow than Salman Rushdie. “Ply refers to the number of strands that make up the yarn’s thread”? Technically that’s an allowable way to use those words; it’s just not a way an American would ever use them. . 

There’s also the emphasis on family life. The sisters Habibur-Rahman tell us about their family, not about where they live, where they went to school, what they or even their husbands do (apart from knitting). Typical of Indian Muslims as distinct from Muslims in some other countries, however, they do use their own individual names rather than honorific “Mother of...” titles.

Perhaps easiest for some Americans to appreciate is the concept of afghans for all seasons. Some of these afghans are heavy snowproof blankets, and some of them are light and lacy. 

Others will love just looking at the ways the sisters play with colors and novelty yarns. A plain cable-stitch panel is framed in two shades of heathered “fun fur.” One afghan mixes five different hand-painted yarns. The cover pattern plays two different multicolor fleck yarns against bright contrasting solid colors. Mandalas are accented with tassels on page 59; paisleys are elaborated with mini-mirrors on page 145. You won’t be able to get the same novelty effects this year, but you’ll be inspired to mix up the current novelty yarns to make afghans that are uniquely your own.

What some Americans will love, and others will hate, is the extravagant use of cashmere yarn. Presumably this is less extravagant in Kashmir, or in Bengal, than it would be in the United States. One entire multicolor afghan is worked in nothing but cashmere. Good luck even finding cashmere yarn in that many colors at your local wool shop...in a good year they might be able to order it specially for you. Mohair and alpaca are easier to get and look gorgeous, too, but they just don’t feel the same.

You need to be a fairly skilled knitter to reproduce most of these afghans. This should not be a problem. Afghans don’t have to fit exactly, and people sweating out colds on the couch won’t even care if the panels aren’t perfectly matched. Afghans are the way knitters build those skills. Gorgeous Knitted Afghans will entice you to perfect knitting techniques that may have seemed too much of a challenge when you were trying to knit a sweater. 

Books About Knitting

This week's Long & Short Reviews prompt was "Books About My Favo(u)rite Topic."

No, that would not be butterflies, or even cats, and it certainly wouldn't be glyphosate. Going by my actual purchase records, my clear favorite topic is knitting.

And here are ten favorite books, long enjoyed, from the 300 or so on the pattern hoard wall in my Home Office:

Madeline Weston, Classic British Knits

Eighties interpretations of lightweight textured ganseys, colorful (often all-natural-colors) fairisles, chunky cabled Arans, and lacy knitted shawls. They really deserve to be knitted in English and Irish wools, though I've made most of them in cotton or even acrylic yarn. When people say they want a sweater they can wear indoors, this is a book I show them. In the nineteenth century, when these knitting traditions began, people prized "fine" yarns and would rather layer on two or three lightweight sweaters than wear a "coarse" chunky one, so the most traditional, true-to-the-museum-piece English sweaters are knitted with wool no thicker than crochet cotton. Most knitters today think such lightweight, slow-growing knits might as well be done on machines. It's still possible to buy the "fine" English wool yarn, though, even in the US, if you want to pay for it.

Annette Mitchell, The Country Diary Book of Knitting

In the 1980s, when publishers expanded their vision of knitting pattern books from plain little how-to-knit manuals (which were often easy to carry around, cheap, and useful) into big glossy coffee-table patterns for Eighties Sweaters as Art and Fashion, this was my first "favorite." It's still a favorite. The retro-Edwardian clothes were over-the-top, and still are. The sweaters are relatively simple styles, good choices for the second or third sweater someone knits, and still wearable today. This book is the source of the cotton sweater I model when marketing my knits, and of the "cluster lace" pattern shown above. (Cluster patterns were very popular in actual Edwardian knitting books but they weren't used to make entire sweaters--that's an Eighties Thing. They were usually used to make borders, sometimes lace edgings sewn onto bed linens of woven fabric.) Ahead of its time, this book also contained patterns for easy-to-make accessories. I've made all of the hats and about half of the sweaters, over the years; most recently I consulted the book for stitch patterns to use in the dish rags that still sell fairly fast in summer. 

Sue Bradley, Around the World in 80 Sweaters

Ironically, while Annette Mitchell's Country Diary Book of Knitting doesn't give a count but does contain more than 80 patterns, this book as published doesn't come near that number. The publisher undoubtedly trimmed back the page count. The book is still a gorgeous coffee-table confection with lots of the museum pieces that inspired these elaborate, very Eighties designs, lots of additional museum pieces for would-be designers, and at least three suggested variations on each of the sweaters that were actually featured in the book. Knit the elaborate versions featured in the full-page, full-color photos if you want to make something that screams "Eighties" (and has high potential for becoming an Ugly Sweater after a few years' wear and tear), or knit the simpler variations if you want something easier to wear and likely to last longer. I've made and worn several designs from this book and its companion...

Sue Bradley, Stitches in Time

Again, about twenty patterns with at least three variations each, suggested by museum pieces. My bead-free version of the "Byzantine" sweater, for which the pattern recommends beads, is shown above. 

Christian de Falbe, Designs in Hand Knitting

Challenging sweater patterns that showed off the knitter's skills were another Eighties Thing, and this book is full of them. This designer published enough designs to put out magazines twice a year, in the 1970s and 1980s, and the hardcover book contains the ones people liked best. When I've knitted them, they've sold. Marketing his designs to experienced knitters allowed de Falbe to design sweaters that were a little more fitted to the female body than was typical in the 1980s, when, no matter how flowery and "feminine" the knitted-in pictures might be, or how fluffy the fabric, most sweater shapes were unisex. He was also marketing his yarn, which was thinner than most hand knitting yarn sold in the US, and made lighter, more wearable sweaters.

American School of Needlework, The Great Knitting Book 

My late Eighties fluorescent-colors version of the early Eighties preppy blue and green sweater (and cap) on the front cover. This book contains patterns for almost everything that can be knitted, including stuffed toys, doilies, edgings to put on towels or pillow cases, blankets, hats, socks, and of course several relatively simple sweaters. You can make the sweaters look totally Awesome Eighties by using, e.g., fluorescent yarn, but they're relatively traditional, timeless patterns.

Kaffe Fassett, Glorious Knits 

Fassett did a lot to market handknitting and handknitted sweaters, as Art and Fashion, in the Eighties with his trademark rule, "When in doubt, add twenty more colors." Shown is a variation on the snug-fitted, very girly-girly floral jacket near the end of the book; someone wanted to see that pattern on an oversized floppy "comfort" sweater for a large person, so here it is. Some of the other designs in the book are even harder to overlook, and some are relatively subdued mixes of neutral colors for men.

Linda Ligon, Homespun Handknit

As the editor of Threads magazine Ligon ran a contest for original designs for hats, mittens, socks, and matching sets of the above. The winning designs were printed as a book. This is the book. Knitters can make most of these projects from scraps left over from sweaters and blankets, and they always have a timeless, cute, handmade look. 

Monica Lewandowski, Folk Mittens

Most of the traditional knitting patterns that were used to design Eighties Sweaters came from old socks, caps, and mittens found in museums. In this book all the best known knitting patterns from museum pieces are reapplied to mitten designs made with yarn that was available around 2000. 

Debbie Anderson and (later US Senator) Chellie Pingree, Sweaters from the Maine Islands

This book caught people's eye, in the late Eighties, because the cover featured not only a knitted-in hen image on a sweater but a model actually holding up a pet hen. I've knitted most of these sweaters; sold several of them. They're fun to knit but, be warned, they were designed by and for young women with thin upper arms. When knitted as designed they'll make some clients complain that they're tight around the arms and hard to wear. So, you can simplify the sleeves, as I did in the cardigan above, for a very Eighties effect, or you can add gussets to the patterns. 

Book (?) Review: Let Me Hold You

Title: Let Me Hold You Crossbody Bag (as Featured in the Once Upon a Starry Night Box Set)

Author: Camy Tang

Quote: "It's the crossbody bag worn by Jan [Thompson]'s character Maggie in Let Me Hold You."

The Once Upon a Starry Night boxset was a bargain bundle of twelve Christmas-themed romances that was sold, not sent out free of charge, through Book Funnel. Tang, one of the featured authors, is a knitter and designed a hand-knitted beach bag as worn by a character in one of the e-books. 

If you want a cute string bag, this pattern ensures a fairly easy knitting job. It uses only about 400 yards of cotton yarn (or saved-up string), so you can afford to knit it...for yourself, or as a holiday or birthday gift. 

Recommended to all knitters whose computers can handle PDF.

Serena's and Silver's Song

[Photo from Freepik]

For the third time snow's falling! It's sticking to ground!

Let Drudge patrol outside. We two will be found

Inside the warm office, not giving a darn

How cold the wind blows, when we've found balls of yarn.

Yarn balls, oh yarn balls, oh yarn balls, we sing,

What a delightful and cuddlesome thing,

A big bag of yarn balls to nestle up on,

We'll lie on yarn balls from sunset till dawn!

They're tied up in plastic and can't roll about.

Perhaps one day we might try letting them out.

Even the bag's cuddly, under our fur,

Feels just like kittens, makes us want to purr!

Yarn balls, oh yarn balls, the rough wool and fluff,

Who ever invented such wonderful stuff?

They pile up beside us in a soft warm groove,

Then offer a cool cushion each time we move.

We're middle-aged cats and often feel dozy.

Yarn balls make lovely beds, so soft and cozy.

They move each time we stretch and flex our claws.

They're easily rearranged with our paws.

Yarn balls, oh yarn balls, the best cat bed ever!

On bags of yarn balls we could snooze forever!

Sometimes we like sleeping on our human's knees,

But yarn balls never move, until we please!

Sometimes the human keeps yarn balls in packs

Of hard, crackly plastic that forms flimsy stacks,

Sometimes in shopping bags that tear away,

But this bag is easy to open! Hurray!

Yarn balls, oh yarn balls! Bag, hold them together

While we burrow down to get out of this weather...

What's biting our human, to cause her to shout?

No idea, but she's telling us to get out!

***

It is so cold that we're snoozing down cellar.

Dawn Possum's been here, too. We can still smell her.

Snuggling on bare dirt that smells like black mold,

We wish all humans had always been told:

There's nothing better than yarn balls to lie on!

Or to have kittens on! Or sit and spy on!

If you have yarn balls, they ought to be sat

On and slept on and enjoyed by your cat!

(This is why the cats were banished from the office. In the morning, the Hefty-Cinch-Sack-sized collection of yarn balls I inherited from a crocheter were double-bagged in a cheap garbage bag in which the cats had not clawed a hole, and removed from the warm room. And I remembered the year Grayzel, who did not generally like being indoors, sneaked in and gave birth to kittens on a bag of yarn I'd been planning to make into a sweater. And I made a note to myself to look for a cheap secondhand child-sized sleeping bag in which to store this yarn...the crocheter left too many odd skeins to fit into an ordinary bag, anyway, and a big bag of yarn balls has to feel like the ultimate comfort zone for cats growing older and sleepier.)

Top Ten Gifts for People Who Love Knitting

This week's Long & Short Reviews prompt is "gifts for people who love" something reviewers love enough to be informed about.

Well, I'm a knitter, so...

1. Yarn Kits

Most knitters enjoy yarn itself. We have to remind ourselves not to stockpile too much more yarn than we can knit in a given season, because many of our favorite yarns attract the dreaded carpet beetle and the dreaded clothes moth. (Clothes moths can only eat wool and other animal-hair fibres; carpet beetles can also eat cotton and linen.) 

However, knitters usually love having someone buy us enough yarn to make something they want us to knit for them. 

Yarn to make elaborate multicolored "Eighties Sweaters" is often available in kits. If you find a "sweater kit" in a wool shop and want to wear the sweater, the kit would be an excellent gift for a knitter. 

Smaller, cheaper knitting kits tend to be designed for children and to include craft yarn, but if what you'd like to have knitted for you is a Christmas tree ornament, the kit to make the one that's caught your fancy would still be a nice gift for a knitter.

For a real nonstop knitter, you might even order a subscription to a monthly knitting kit service:

https://hooksneedles.com/products/hooks-needles-subscription-box

2. Plain Yarn 

Knitters' imagination is not limited to kits. In fact some knitters don't want to knit an exact copy of someone else's design. Some knitters would prefer to receive a box of yarn and decide, with the person for whom they're knitting if that's not themselves, what to make of it. 

Knitters who prowl secondhand stores eagerly buy, and would appreciate receiving as gifts, sacks of other people's leftover yarn. These can be very cheap and become super-profitable. I once paid less than $8 for a few bags of Rowan Silkstones yarn, which came with a price of about $8 per two-ounce skein stamped on the label of each skein. I knitted it into a very arty-looking jacket and sold it for about $800.

More often, yarn sold at a deep discount is unsalable junk the store wants to get out of people's sight, but some knitters enjoy the challenge of making some use even from nasty spun-plastic yarn--maybe as dog blankets for an animal shelter?

Special Yarns Knitters Love

The more you know about what makes these yarns special, the easier it will be to choose one for the knitter you know. Some yarns are just madly popular with knitters!

3. Schoolhouse Press 

https://www.schoolhousepress.com/

Elizabeth Zimmermann taught knitting, sold wool, wrote books, and organized Knitting Camps in an abandoned one-room schoolhouse. Her children and grandchildren have kept the business going. Millions of knitters refer to EZ's books for guidance on knitting and designing, feel as if EZ were a friend of their grandmother's (which she may well have been), and enjoy using the yarns she bought and sold. They're all delicious, mostly soft-colored or undyed wools with enough lanolin to make knitting with them feel like a moisturizing treatment for the hands. 

4. Philosophers' Wool

https://philosopherswool.ca/

What's hard to see in the photo is that each of these colored yarns is actually a mix of two or three closely related colors that gives the yarn and resulting fabric a distinctive, rich look. Again, the yarns are fairly natural, with plenty of lanolin, and feel pleasant in the knitter's hands. They feel rough but, on a cold night, that rough woolly texture feels wonderfully warming around your neck and ears.

The philosophers were Ann and Eugene Bourgeois, whose biography is at the business web site. They willed the business to a sustainable agriculture group. It's about the dear little sheep who actually like having their coats trimmed when the weather gets warm! "Wool allergies" are usually not allergies to sheep themselves (that can happen, rarely) but sensitivities to acid used to clean many wool materials and sometimes other chemicals used to dye them and reduce shrinkage. Philosophers Wool is one of the more natural wools that are so much easier for most people to wear.

5. Peace Fleece

https://peacefleece.com/

They originally spun fleece from Russian and American sheep together while awaiting, and then celebrating, the end of the Cold War. Currently they spin Navajo wool together with non-Navajo US mohair. Once again, the yarns are natural and feel like snuggling a pet lamb. 

6. Virtual Yarns

https://virtualyarns.com/

Alice Starmore was a fashion designer whose use of fairisle knitting was not traditional...she had too much fun with it. She "retired" enough to run her own little yarn business with her daughter. Real 
"Eighties" knitters, and 1990s knitters likewise, adored her masterpiece designs. When you knitted and wore something from one of AS's pattern books, people knew you were a serious knitter. Virtual Yarns still sells AS patterns and real Scotch Hebridean wools. 

7. Wool2Dye4

https://www.wool2dye4.com/

They have a wide selection of undyed yarn, including some good cottons and other alternatives to wool. Some knitters, and some people who commission hand kniting, are allergic to chemical dyes. These yarns come in natural white and sometimes shades of brown and gray. You can dye the white yarns with indigo, madder, and garden weeds or with Kool-Aid powder if you like. 

I think five specific brands are enough, but knitters for whom you shop can probably recommend twenty more. 

8. Books 

Knitters usually like to look at pattern books and magazines. Every knitter has per own opinions about which books are and are not worth the usually high price for the full-color pictures on glossy paper. Books by Elizabeth Zimmermann, Meg Swansen, Annette Mitchell, Kaffe Fassett, Alice Starmore, Helene Rush, Alexis Xenakis And The Staff of Knitter's Magazine, Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, Nicky Epstein, and Anna Zilboorg are worth their price to most knitters.

9. Accessories 

Various accessories, from cheap plastic rings to use as markers through hand-carved wooden needle holders, are sold as gifts for knitters. The individual knitter for whom you're buying a gift may or may not have any use for these gadgets. Ask before buying a really expensive one.

10. Space 

Some knitters would like to receive the gift of their family's respect for their craft, but this web site is not going to be vile and end with a warble about your thoughts counting as a gift. For gift-giving occasion purposes, only material gifts count. You can, however, make it easier for knitters to store and display their supplies (and products) with the gift of a storage system--deep shelves for storing kits, sturdy bookshelves for storing patterns, a nice bound journal for the notes on their knitting that most modern knitters take. 

(Photo credit: Nimble Needles.) 

Why not do that at home? It's pretty, its tidy, it's safe...it's actually great insulation...and, if all that yarn is natural material, and it just lives in your house instead of being displayed for sale and sold, it's guaranteed to attract moths and beetles. It will work, though, if the knitter in your family works with (wool shops like Nimble Needles absolutely hate this idea) acrylic craft yarns. Nothing really eats them, though mice have been known to nest in acrylic yarn. 

For storing wool, the Greenest alternative is a nice clean freezer, free from food odors. 

For storing manageable quantities of wool and cotton yarn, cedar chests were traditional, but they weren't necessarily ideal for the yarn. Plastic totes are serviceable, but if temperatures change they'll form dew and you'll be storing yarn in water. Metal storage drums have the same drawback. Cardboard boxes in the closet work well, in a reasonably controlled indoor "climate" with a competent cat, for any yarn purchased in advance of the working projects knitters like to store in proper knitting bags.

(Photo from Etsy.)

Any large lightweight bag can be used to carry knitting projects around; knitters can knit their own bags (lined with heavy woven fabric), but a proper knitting bag stands beside chair, couch, or bed on a wooden frame,and has room for yarn, needles, as much of the project as has been knitting, instructions, and whatever the knitter is reading while person knits. Every knitter needs at least one of these. 

Book Review: Pictures in Patchwork

 Title: Pictures in Patchwork (Le Patchwork)

Author: Marie-Janine Solvit

Translator: Walter A. Simson

Date: 1976 (French), 1977 (English)

Publisher: Dessain et Tolra (French), Sterling (English)

ISBN: 0-8069-5380-2 (Englsih)

Length: 112 pages

Illustrations: many color photos and drawings

Quote: “Patchwork as we know it is basically an American craft.”

On page 7 of Pictures in Patchwork, the quote above is surrounded by three photos of antique quilts from France. However, patchwork and quilting are actually two different techniques. Patchwork is joining patches of fabric into a single flat seamed surface; quilting is stitching two or more layers of fabric with lining between them into a thick, textured, insulated material. Quilting was not new when it appeared in French fashions of the seventeenth century, nor was patchwork new when it became a fad throughout Europe and North America in the eighteenth century.

In France, however, the fashion for patchwork didn’t last. Even in England it was a rather short-lived fad. In the United States, patchwork became a Folk Art Tradition and continued to be practiced after the fashion for patchwork clothing had passed.

Solvit provides some examples of traditional patchwork patterns (examples in French museums are older than those in American museums), but her book is mainly about pictorial patchwork and appliqué, sometimes enhanced with embroidery, as shown on the covers of the book. She also briefly considers knitted and crocheted patchwork.

Pictures in Patchwork is less of an instructional guide than Creative Patchwork, less of a reference work than American Quilts. Published under the auspices of Elle magazine, it’s a perky, whimsical guide to what the author clearly regards as a “creative” fad hobby. For those who want inspiration to patch together their own semi-abstract landscapes, this book should be inspiring. 

Book Review: Knit Wits

Title: Knit Wit

Author: Amy R. Singer

Author’s’zine: www.knitty.com

Date: 2004

Publisher: Harper Resource

ISBN: 0-06-074070-1

Length: 128 pages

Illustrations: many color photos by Bill Milne, some color drawings by Erica Mulherin

Quote: “Clearly you want to knit, or you wouldn’t be holding this book.”

Around 2000, people who’d caught knitting mania in the 1990s were starting to feel that they had enough sweaters and/or sweater patterns. The market for books that showed people how to knit by knitting sweaters took a sharp decline. The market for books that showed people how to knit other “fashion items” (most of which are as classic and fashion-free as sweaters) took a corresponding upsurge, and at that point on the marketing chart Amy Singer produced the first official printed collection from the online magazine, Knitty.com.

So here are patterns for leg warmers, scarves, hats, a “nose warmer,” slippers, an “ice cream pint cozy” (good for a laugh if you knit a few dozen for a bazaar), laptop cover, Sony Walkman and Discman covers, a long skinny “yoga mat bag,” a bottle sling, belts, shorts, miniskirts, a bikini, and five sweaters. Missing are coasters, towels, and washcloths, which Knitty readers can figure out how to design for themselves.

(There are new patterns online at Knitty now. If you spend some time formatting them correctly in Word, you can print them to fit into the quirky stand-up format of this book. If you save money or even earn money with these patterns, it’s good form to pay for the’zine at PATREON.)

What’s not to like in this collection? Publishers do this for valid marketing reasons but, if I were a publisher, I wouldn’t waste expensive pages in a glossy full-color book taken up with “how to knit.” People can, or should, learn how to cast on and off, knit plain and purl stitches, attach new yarn, run in ends, and knit in beads and sequins if they want them, in real life or from instructions printed on regular paper. Slick paper that takes full-color glossy photos well should be used for printing photos and accompanying instructions. At a pinch it’d be better to include more pictures on the slick paper and more instructions, with thumbnail black-and-white images of the projects, on another big sheet of plain paper, rather than waste slick paper on prose that would be easier to read on regular paper. About 36 of this book’s 128 pages don’t need glossy paper.

Seriously, that’s my quibble. I doubt that anybody wants every one of these knitted items but that’s par for the course; when the less inspired patterns in a book are for bazaar items (an ice cream carton cover?!), at least you can get your money’s worth of fun out of them. For all who enjoy knitting, this is a fun and useful read.

Book Review: Knitter's Stash

Title: Knitter’s Stash

Author: Barbara Albright

Date: 2001

Publisher: Interweave

ISBN: 1-883010-89-6

Length: 174 pages

Illustrations: full-color photos by Joe Coca

Quote: “This book is meant to take you on an intimate armchair tour of thirty-three of America’s premier stores.”

That’s what’s not to like about this book. It’s a great knitting pattern book, but it’s mistitled. This is not a book about using up the skein of this yarn and half-skein of that yarn that make up a “knitter’s stash.” Some, not all, of the patterns could be reworked with odd yarns from a knitter’s stash. The writing is about wool shops; the patterns are things storekeepers have designed to market what was in their stashes. By the time the book was printed some of the yarn these patterns were designed to market had already ceased to exist. Many of the patterns use more of one kind of yarn than knitters are likely to have left over from other projects. You may use up some of your stash but this book will send you back to the store.

The table of contents titles sections (mostly four pages each) by wool shop. “Great Yarns, Inc., Outer Banks Throw. Knitting By the Sea, Graduated Ribbed Top,” and so on.

Turn to page two. One page contains a short description of the shop by that name in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a photo and contact information. Page three is the photograph of the afghan as it was made in stripes of the novelty yarns of the season, “from greens to peaches and then to off-whites.” Page four contains the instructions for copying Linda Pratt’s afghan, which are simple: take some expensive multicolor yarns and knit them on big needles in stripes. Page five fills in with some general knitting tips. This one would be easy to do with whatever’s in your stash.

Page six describes a shop called Knitting By the Sea in Carmel, California,again with a photo and contact information. Page seven shows the finished sweater. Pages eight and nine contain the instructions for a basic rib-stitch pullover, with a chart for a distinctive way of increasing as you knit your way up the sleeves. You could knit it in the cotton yarns that are available everywhere, every year, working tightly and probably having to redo the sleeves, or a lighter-weight cotton if you were lucky enough to find some; you would have to have overpurchased wildly to have that much cotton in your own stash.

And so on. The next (eight-page) chapter introduces the Pennsylvania shop of Kathy Zimmerman and her latest design, a pullover in “Age of Aquarius” cables (heart shapes for love, rope shapes for peace), and a matching hat and pair of heavy socks, all worked in a bulky, fluffy llama-wool yarn. (“Montera” yarn [] was on the market for many seasons, and was fun to handle—but I knitted my “Age of Aquarius” set in cotton. I used Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton,which Michaels no longer sells.It was interchangeable with Sugar’n’Cream and Peaches & Creme.) Only a wool shop, I suspect, ever has enough yarn to make a cabled sweater (cables use up more yarn) and hat and socks, also cabled, all matching each other, in a “stash.”

Most wool shops are owned and operated by expert knitters. In addition to Zimmerman, a few other designers’ names were familiar to people who read knitting book and magazines in 2001: Ron Schweitzer, who designed new American patterns using the nine natural colors into which Shetland sheep’s coats are classified; Melissa Matthay, who published a book of her own sweater patterns a few years later; Judy Dercum, one of the design team  for La Lana; Tara-Jon Manning, author of several books; Beryl Hiatt and Lindy Phelps, joint authors of two books.

More of the designers featured here were just storekeepers, though knitters may have remembered visits to their stores as particular treats. I always thought Yarns International was worth the extra bus ride—from Bethesda Station and the wonderful wool shop there, even.

Shops and yarns have changed, but knitting has not. In addition to the first three designs, readers get patterns for one basic poncho, two far from basic shawls,two lightweight long-sleeved sweaters, three sleeveless sweaters, a rug, eight thick warm cardigans (including baby sizes),a scarf, two pillow covers, a cowl, a set of eight washcloths, four stuffed animals, three more thick winter pullovers, a tea cozy,two more hats, a baby-size pair of socks, a bag, a baby-size sleeveless smock, one blanket-thick pullover with buttons opening down to the waist for relief from the heat while wearing it, and a pair of mittens. Making them up in this year’s yarns will make them this year’s knitwear, although one cardigan definitely preserves the memory of 2001’s fad for super-bulky sweaters, which was a fad all active and healthy sweater wearers were glad to put behind us.

Top-heavy sweater wearers were also glad to see the fad for sweaters and shirts divided in the middle, like the Marie Louise Lace Sweater in this book, passing its peak in the 1990s. Of course we knew in 2001 that there’s no reason why a person not trying to look bigger would actually have knitted lace up to the bustline and ribbing above. The sweater could easily be made flattering to everybody by knitting just one row of lace ripples around the bottom (if that) and eyelet ribbing all the way up. If you couldn’t find Berroco Linet yarn, which wasn’t imported for very long, you could always knit this sweater in good old Speed-Cro-Sheen cotton, which had the advantage of being available in white and black instead of “wild mushroom” color.

It’s also light enough to knit as a winter garment in Shetland wool, and might look particularly pretty in undyed wool from naturally “blue” (grey) or “red” (red-brown) sheep. When wool is groomed out of a sheep’s coat rather than cut, washed in clear water, and spun without being dyed, it feels nothing like the scratchy, acid-soaked “washable wools” to which many people are allergic. Ron Schweitzer’s nine-color undyed sweaters feel more like cashmere than like what many people think of as wool.

My own must-knit-nows in this book, in addition to the Age of Aquarius set, were the Celtic Cardigan (using up four congenial leftovers of wool from my stash), Cardigan with Garter Stitch Trim (sold the second day it was displayed), and Lace Ribs Pullover...and all those small projects that really will use up yarn from your stash, if you have one, or from another knitter’s stash, if you don’t have one.

To use up a large stash fast, the final “Opulent Evening Shawl” was designed to use up some not very knitter-friendly yarn from Italy, which you probably would have had enough sense to avoid in 2001. It will use up all your lovely ends of Sugar’n’Cream, Peaches & Creme, Red Heart, Decor, Berella, Philosophers Wool, Montera, Lion Brand “Homespun,” Mountain Colors, 1824, Cherry Tree Hill, Tahki, Cleckheaton, and similar blanket-weight yarns in a gorgeous rainbow of elaborate color mixes and plain stitching. If you have lighter-weight scraps, you can strand two or three together to put them into this shawl too. Heavier? The rainbow idea could also be applied to that blanket at the beginning of the book, and by the way, although a one-person afghan or “throw” can be only three or four feet long, there’s nothing to stop you knitting it as a full-sized blanket, seven feet long.

But of course Albright and her storekeeper friends were hoping that you’d notice the one-color sweaters—oh, the lightness of the Marie Louise Lace Sweater! the mathematical precision of the Lace Ribs Pullover! the almost Brownie-Scouts-project simplicity of the Cardigan with Garter Stitch Trim!—and think “Must knit now,” and go out and buy another bag of yarn, knit through it, and add some more leftovers to your stash. Serious stash knitters go into a yarn store and make a beeline for the stash of odd balls left over at the end of their seasons. Maybe you didn’t want to make a whole sweater or blanket in a fashionable shade of hot pink or dirt-color or “wild mushroom,” but one or two skeins will be a great addition to your stash. You might want to knit a little brown bunny with black eyes into a child’s sweater, or use a strand of bright orange to add depth and complexity to a shades-of-brown afghan...

(Fair disclosure: I think stash knitting is great, not only because it satisfies my bargain-hunting and pattern-tweaking instincts, but because, best of all, it yanks the chains of the “Everybody should ‘declutter’ and not own more than they can carry on their backs, so they can waste all their money nomadding about until they reach retirement age and can be packed into nursing homes where they’ll die faster” crowd. Hello...I would never want to interfere with your living like birds, or hobos, or whatever your role models for life may be, but I maintain that humans are better off when they live in separate houses, insulated with things they enjoy owning, and leave both houses and contents to those of their relatives who can appreciate them. Knitters should build wool rooms onto our houses in order to “declutter” the tossers out of our lives.)

Too Bad About Joann's

Joann's Fabrics stores are going out of business. Twenty years ago that chain was one of the Big Four retailers that together sold ninety percent of the needlework supplies in the United States, and now...

I was in the local Joann's outlet for the going-out-of-business sale. Would it be a chance to get a great bargain even on really basic yarn, like Red Heart acrylic? 

It would not. Even for the going-out-of-business sale, Joann's demanded more money per skein of Red Heart acrylic than Wal-Mart did. 

I'd have to forgive that, though I might not have felt able to justify buying any Red Heart acrylic, from a locally owned store. Joe's and Ann's General Store (Since 1920), if such a place had existed, would probably have been buying their Red Heart acrylic from Wal-Mart, and marking it up by only 25 cents a skein would have qualified as a sincere effort to keep their business real.

But Joann's was a nationwide, I think even continent-wide store, a serious competitor with Wal-Mart; Joann's had stores as big as Wal-Mart with only the needlecraft department, so Joann's could and should have offered all kinds of yarn Wal-Mart didn't have room for, at competitive prices...the way Michael's and Hobby Lobby have stayed afloat by doing. 

And did they? No. It's sad that Joann's went down but it's instructive to remember that why they went down is, among other things, that all they learned from Hobby Lobby was Hobby Lobby's big mistake. Joann's didn't sell specialty yarns but crammed their shelves with cheap store-brand substitutes...not for luxury yarns Wal-Mart didn't sell and most knitters couldn't afford, but for Red Heart.

Seriously.

At the time of writing, even with inflation, you can still buy enough Red Heart to make a sweater for an average adult for $10 or less. The world does not really need cheaper substitutes for Red Heart; they exist because other manufacturers keep trying to replicate Red Heart yarn and not succeeding.

For most of this winter I've been wearing a tabard I knitted for myself out of the cheap substitute for Red Heart Wal-Mart tried to offer. Whether or not you ever wear acrylic jackets, here's what you need to know: Red Heart acrylic jackets are indestructible. People dig them up from under cubic yards of mud after a flood, run them through the washer and dryer, and wear them again. The yarn bounces back to its original shape. The colors don't fade or run. Nothing made out of Red Heart looks posh to knitters who recognize it, because we all recognize the cheap blanket yarn dime stores sell for kids to learn on and crocheters to make tacky afghans out of, but you just about have to snip or burn Red Heart to make it look any worse than it always did. I'm not a snob; I don't think it looks bad at all.

I wore an over-dress made of Red Heart acrylic when it seemed necessary to run a few miles in heavy rain. It stretched, of course, as it got wet. I was holding the hem up around the waist and it was still a long dress. It looked ruined. I took it to the laundromat the next day. Pop through the washer, pop through the dryer...it was just the right length for me, same as it had been when I finished knitting it.

But I had bought a pound of this cheaper substitute for Red Heart at Wal-Mart for test purposes, so I made myself a tabard. A tabard is a personal blanket with a hole in the middle for your head, sometimes with flaps to extend over shoulders. I knitted it just long enough to pile around me while sitting down in cold weather. I knitted exactly two inches of V into the front neckline. Before it was even knitted the cheap yarn started to pill, which makes it look as if it's been washed and dried many times, but it has yet to be fully immersed in water; it's been worn like a blanket rather than a shirt and has yet to be soiled. And already the hems flap around my ankles and the V is down to my waistline. And the shoulder flaps, knitted to extend an inch or two above my elbows, are forming long sleeves.

Most cheap acrylics will stretch--beyond all imagining, if they're handled while wet--and are not really worth knitting. You can use them to knit itsy-bitsy patches of color, but after your first twenty or thirty knitted projects you have a stash of scrap yarn that you use to knit itsy-bitsy patches of color. Probably the best use for cheap acrylic yarn is as stuffing. There have been other acrylics, most originally made by Monsanto and trademarked as "Wintuk," that will make fabrics whose stretching can be controlled, and I always like to experiment with the new brands to see into which category they fall, but...sad but true...most of them are execrable.

(Caron Dazzle-Aire was probably, of all acrylic yarns ever made, the closest to Red Heart in durability. It was a casualty of people's feelings toward Monsanto. I have Dazzle-Aire sweaters that I still wear, and Dazzle-Aire yarn in my wool room that I'm still knitting for sale, because this yarn really does feel like kittens' fur and wear like iron; Dazzle-Aire doesn't even pill as much as many smoother yarns pill. Caron Simply Soft, which is still made by a company that bought the spinning operation away from Monsanto, will stretch in use, but reasonably--a blanket will stretch enough to tuck under your toes, not enough to become a carpet rather than a blanket. I can't recommend any other acrylic yarn currently on the market. If, however, the color appeals to a small child, I would buy more of Hobby Lobby's "Yarn Bee" acrylic to make a child's sweater; it'll stay cute through one or two wearings, which is about how long it takes a small child either to lose a sweater or to outgrow it.)

So this Joann's store had whole shelves full of cheap acrylic, for which they wanted about as much money per ounce as Wal-Mart wants for Red Heart, and a few leftover skeins of Red Heart, for which they wanted more than Wal-Mart wants for Red Heart. And they wondered why nobody was buying this yarn even on this going-out-of-business sale. Nobody with the math skills to knit would ever have bought yarn from Joann's, because they never offered competitive prices. Even for their going-out-of-business sale their prices aren't competitive.

Joann's primary commodity was woven fabric. I don't buy enough woven fabric to judge, but it didn't seem to me that their prices on woven fabric looked very competitive either.

How did Joann's ever get to be a competitor with Wal-Mart, Michael's, and Hobby Lobby, whose prices are generally competitive with one another? There's only one explanation: Joann's was there first, in places that didn't have Wal-Mart, Michael's, or Hobby Lobby. 

And so, although in some places Joann's may be missed...we can't remember it as a casualty of the economic damage the COVID panic has done. The demise of Joann's looks, from here, like a simple and desirable market correction.

What to Read to Learn About Knitting

When the first response to this Long & Short Reviews prompt showed up in the blog feed, I thought, "That site is just having fun at reviewers' expense this week." Actually L&SR left us free choice of subjects to recommend books about. Lydia Schoch was the one who chose to recommend books about Canadian history.

I don't expect anyone else picked that subject, since most blogs linked to L&SR seem to be based in the UK or US. (In that order.) Books about Canadian history or contemporary events aren't marketed to us the way they ought to be. A big name like Farley Mowat or Margaret Atwood, maybe, but even Pierre Berton is hard to find in US libraries. 

This is not a call for more bean-counting. Bean-counting is likely to work against Canadian writers--the "Right, Margaret Atwood's name sells her books, that's our Canadian content, now who'll be the ONE Australian author on our list?" kind of thing. This is a call for more reading (and retailing) of books without much concern about where the authors come from or what they look like.  We could use more reading and retailing of books merely because they are good books, done by people who think authors with different backgrounds are interesting. 

I know the feeling of hating that your college literature book, which someone stupidly chose to decorate with thumbnail portraits of the authors, was so White-male-centric that people teased you about carrying around photos of your boyfriends. Likewise the feeling of discovering all the good stuff that used not to be considered for inclusion in the literature books just because it was not written by White men from the UK or US. (In that order.) Neither of those feelings is a valid reason for discriminating against living White men who are writing books now, as many publishers are doing. "We want to see manuscripts from BIPOC writers, 'sexual minority' writers, and we might consider White women writers...White men have to pay us to read anything they write." There will never be another Terry Pratchett, or Wendell Berry, or C.S. Lewis, but, if another man was born with the ability to write things of comparable appeal to "literary" scholars and to readers, he'd have to pay today's editors to discover him, probably by sending them printed manuscripts someone dug out and read when the computers were down. It's not right.

Canadian authors are a minority in the US, but they're not a trendy minority so the publishers don't care about them. That's not right, either.

There are good writers in New Zealand. There are good writers in India. There are good writers in Kenya. "For copyright reasons," most of their books aren't in US bookstores or libraries. Some excellent books can be discovered at State Department book sales. Some can be mailed by friends in the appropriate country. 

I recommend that Americans read more foreign books. I recommend that more of us read more books, period. 

Anyway my specialty, or niche, or Knitche, is knitting. Here are some books to read to learn about knitting:

1. Everyone starts, or wishes they'd started, with Elizabeth Zimmermann: Knitting Without Tears, Knitters' Almanac, Knitters' Workshop, Knitting Around, and the posthumous collection, The Opinionated Knitter.

2. Serious knitters can explore the structure of stitch patterns with Barbara Walker's four Treasuries of Knitting Patterns. Those who want to try making a living designing new knitted pieces could work with those two writers' works alone. People did it in the 1980s.

3. If you like simple designs to knit with or without frivolous 1980s motifs, for children and adults, study the collected works of Helene Rush: Maine Woods Woollies, More Maine Sweaters, and any of the others you can still find. Because HR was known for accessibility and her books were published as inexpensive paperbacks, they tended to wear out. Someone should republish her work as a new coffee-table-type book that will last.

4. If you want to play with Aran cables and Fair Isle (type) colors, study the works of Alice Starmore, especially Alice Starmore's Book of Fairisle Knitting. 

5. If you're interested in the history of knitting, look for anything you can find by James Norbury or Richard Rutt. (Their books were historical studies but, yes, both men actually knitted. Rutt was also a bishop in the Church of England; Norbury was also a TV star.)

6. If you're interested in knitting as a modern art form, you were probably drawn to it by the work of Kaffe Fassett. Glorious Knitting (or Glorious Knits, depending on where your copy was printed) was his first book and has the most different patterns in it.

7. If you want less verbiage and more distinctive patterns you can knit into basic, useful pieces like hats, socks, and mittens instead of sweaters, get Anna Zilboorg's Fancy Feet, Magnificent Mittens, and Fine and Fanciful Hats. 

8. If you are a woman who wants to knit something for a typical man, don't buy books with titles like Sweaters for Men. Or buy them, since Alice Starmore's Sweaters for Men were irresistible designs, and admit you're knitting them as oversized "boyfriend sweaters" for yourself. Typical men want a precise fit and a generic look, typically the exact opposite of what beginners want to knit. They are more likely to appreciate original, distinctive-looking knitted pieces for the house or car. It's worth looking for "official" collections of sports-motif knitting patterns you can work into blankets and pillows for your favorite sports fans. These are short-lived, as "official" motifs change from year to year, and tend to be printed as cheap paperbacks.

If on the other hand you find a man who's willing to model your knits, looks good in them, and asks you to knit something just for him, follow his taste precisely, and observe him in other contexts. He may be worth keeping.

9. If you want to knit things for children, the essential consideration is that they tend to be more active than adults. Babies chill easily; active wiggly children overheat easily. Don't put a sweater on a child before it is shivering. That said, children I knew used to model things I knitted from designs by Jil Eaton (Minnow Knits and sequels), Helene Rush, Chellie Pingree (Maine Island Knits and sequels), The Yarn Girls, and Knitters magazine. Patterns for children's things are useful guides to size and shape; since they're designed to appeal to adults you can always update the colors and patterns as long as you keep the size and shape, or alter it as necessary to fit the child.

10. If you want to knit distinctive sweaters for your (female) self, the secret is to ignore New York fashions. You can update any design that appeals to you from the 1920s onward. It will not be possible to knit a majority of designs from even six months ago in the original yarn, since most sweater designs are published in order to market "this season's" yarn and "this season's" yarn rarely sells well enough that manufacturers keep it in the stores next season. If the brand of yarn is still in the stores, you'll still have to update the colors. If the design that caught your fancy came from a different decade, you may want to knit a smaller or larger size to get today's kind of fit. The knitwear I've modelled in the booth while selling other knits have been chosen according to the expected temperature, and came from, in order of when they were knitted: Erica Wilson's Knitting Book (my purple and teal sweater was based on one she knitted in natural cream and brown wools), Annette Mitchell's Country Diary Book of Knitting (the light red cotton sweater), Pat Menchini's Beatrix Potter Knitting Book (the blue cardigan), and Deborah Newton's Designing Knitwear (the rainbow-of-scraps Blanket Shawl). I don't think newer designs or books are in any way inferior--it's just that I've taken good care of my three sweaters and shawl, and not needed to keep more knitwear for myself. Younger talent deserves its reward. Look at the new books and magazines in the stores as well as the classics from the 1980s.

Eighties Sweaters Are Back: 2.3. Instant Gratification Sweaters

Is anybody online on Christmas Day? Not many people. On the assumption that, if you celebrated Christmas, you wouldn't be surfing the'Net this morning, here is the long delayed end of a series I did a few years ago. I thought, "Oh well, New York fashions last one season at a time," but Eighties sweaters seem to be coming back into fashion more than ever. I've seen several on college chicks, some in department stores, and some in TV commercials this winter. So why not finish the series now? I started knitting in 1989, so anything I actually made in the Eighties, if still usable, is not for sale. But hand knitting is fashion-proof, so several things I've made in the Nineties or later used real 1980s patterns and/or yarns! Hand-knitted things are part of your personal style that may or may not be currently being copied in New York. 

These are the Instant Gratification projects--large pieces, sweaters, shawls, or blankets, made from very simple patterns, often on extra-large needles, to be finished in one rainy weekend. Mary Anne Erickson and Eve Cohen traced the fad to Palm Beach, where they described knitters working with one ordinary needle and one extra-large needle to make longer rows of stitches that produced knitted fabric, albeit rather loosely knitted fabric, faster. Many people who learned to knit in the Eighties wanted to knit a sweater in a weekend. And they wore those sweaters, too. 

While my feeling at the time was that pattern books like Condo Knitting and Weekend Knits pushed the idea too far, some delightfully Eighties sweaters were designed around the idea of "make it fast, without thinking much about it." 

Most Instant Gratification projects were knitted for the knitter's personal use. Some of the Instant Gratification Sweaters I've made have stayed around a long time, but they do eventually find homes when the right person finds them. The one I wear most is my Blanket Shawl, a wonderful serendipitous thing I made when I had just the right mix of scraps to make it 50% shrinkable animal fibres and 50% stretchable acrylics, so on the whole it tends to stretch a little under its own weight when worn but snap back to size when machine-laundered. About half the people who comment on it say it looks like the blankets "homeless" characters wear in TV movies (real homeless people usually wear heavy, grimy overcoats), and half ask if I can do another one like it. I can do more Blanket Shawls, and have done them, but there'll never be another one quite like mine, which is not for sale. It used up the last bits of several authentic 1980s yarns.

Here are some Instant Gratification projects I am willing to sell.

The vest shape is an authentic Eighties one that Sue Bradley used for several of her designs. The denim look comes from mixing scraps and damaged yarns, including a big ball of damaged blue wool, with a durable white sock yarn. This vest will last for years, though it may show its age.

The shaping here was published later than the 1980s in a book by Laura Militzer Bryant, but the boxy, blousy shape and ribbed waist give it that 1980s look...and the "Spring" colors really were a 1980s fad but, as most people had been warned not to wear them, they didn't sell well and became hard to find. The main yarn I used was indeed sold in the 1980s, left over from a child's coat I'd made when the yarn was new. 

If you could see the whole sweater you'd recognize the "batwing" shape. It really peaked in the late 1970s, as did the brown/sand/cream color mix, but designers were still using it in the early Eighties... until some dress-for-success expert warned that "batwings don't fly up the corporate ladder." There was  a feeling that people couldn't keep their minds on their jobs if they found it easy to move and breathe. I earned a lot of money helping people reduce the pain being uncomfortable at the office caused, and I say that people not only can keep their minds on the jobs when they feel comfortable but have a right to sue the company if they don't. Whether people feel comfortable in drapey cardigans or snug tailored blazers or in their shirts with no toppers at all, in the office, is their business. Anyway, in the mid-eighties batwing sweaters were ruled un-businesslike, and suddenly people remembered that as a fashion fad they'd peaked in the previous decade. But they looked good on some people--not all.

I stumbled across the Eighties yarn in 2003, while shopping for books at the Teen Challenge store in Laurel, Maryland. Someone drove up to offer the store a donation, and one of the young workers recognized me and rushed out to interrupt my husband, who was reading a detective story in the car. "Aren't you the ones who were looking for yarn a few years ago? We don't have a yarn department but someone just gave us a load of yarn! Would you take it, free of charge?" My husband prudently did and I made a couple of sweaters out of it, including this remake of an Eighties design.

This pattern was published in the 1980s but, so far as I know, only in French and only on the imported yarn wrappers. It may well have appeared in a company magazine I've not found! In real life the sleeves and sides of the sweater do match (although the stripes are different), the wrapper tied to the front border is meant to be untied once you've absorbed the manufacturer's instructions for washing this fancy brushed acrylic, and the long turn-back cuffs and stand-up collar were Eighties fads, as were the Autumn colors. 

Elizabeth Zimmermann first published the instructions for this child's jacket and the matching hoodless woman's jacket, not shown, long before the 1970s, but they were reprinted in her books and used in the Eighties. In real life the sides of both jackets match. (Some of these photos were snapped by an impatient college kid whose mother had "volunteered" the student's services without consulting the student...)

This scrap-yarn tabard wasn't really an Eighties fad; designers continued to play with a revival of "tabard" styles (fastened down the sides rather than the front or back) that really took place in the Seventies. I actually made it in 2005. It's meant to be worn as an easy-on, easy-open, never-too-heavy cover-up to throw over your pajamas on a chilly morning. It's mostly mohair and is not meant to be machine-laundered. (It's not at all like the "feel the pattern" natural-yarn shawl e-friend Elizabeth Barrette had a character knit in one of her Terramagne poems, but since you can feel the pattern in the different textures of the yarn, it came to mind as I read the poem. You can see EB's poems, and sponsor more of them, at http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com. You can also commission a real-world version of the triangular "feel the pattern" shawl, either in all-natural undyed yarns, which will be expensive, or in a mix of cheaper pale-colored scraps, which would cost $50.)

This cardigan is more than half cotton, so it shouldn't be as stifling as some Instant Gratification Sweaters were. It also contains a fair bit of wool and mohair, so shrinking and stretching should in theory balance and stabilize the size of the piece even if it gets wet. It should fit an average woman, maybe a tall one depending on how you like your cardigans to fit. I tend to like a cardigan with room to fit over a hoodie, which is how this one would fit me. Things designed for children in the 1980s, when sweaters were meant to have "positive ease" measured in number of inches they were wider than the wearer's chest, have been bought by young, tall, busty women who say a stretched-to-fit look is more fashionable these days...the sweater is about 40" around.

The main yarn here is a mohair blend, and mohair tends to fluff out to fill in the spaces in extremely loose, fast knitting. The irregular stripes are formed by an open mesh stitch. This is a very large (late 1980s "fit" for a 38" bust or chest measurement, so the actual sweater has about a 50" bust/chest measurement) jacket that should have room for anybody; sleeves are to roll back, waist is to hang down like a coat. Actually the size is up to the owner. If you want a smaller jacket, wet it and let it shrink--almost all the yarn is wool or mohair, so it will. If you want the same size or wider or longer, wet it, pin it down to shape, and let it dry on a board. 

One reason I like making clothes for sale is that it allows me to look at all those pretty Summer pastel colors that look so good, to me, on a shelf and so bad next to my sallow Winter face. This cardigan was designed for a "cropped" look, which was more fashionable in the 1990s but was sometimes seen in the 1980s, on a tall woman. It comes right down over my waistline for a maximally unflattering look on me. It would have a very 1980s look if worn by a tall, thin, blue-eyed woman over a beige or light blue, knee-length, boxy skirt, with either a wide belt (preferably in a shade of brown or beige that matched some of the stripes in the sweater) or a close-fitting blouse.

Black and white striped tops were an early 1980s trend that stayed popular. I can afford to offer this vest for $10 plus shipping charges, which was a bargain even in the Eighties. It should fit up to a 42" bust with room for a shirt underneath, up to a 40" with room for a sweater or sweatshirt.

There's not really a book I can recommend as containing only Instant Gratification patterns. This is partly because many of the best ones don't have patterns at all. Take some yarn you enjoy looking at, make a gauge swatch, work out how many stitches make the width of what you want, cast on that many stitches, and knit until you reach the length you want. Add borders, collars, patch pockets, etc., if you want them. It really is that easy. If you want to use up a lot of scraps, use multicolor patterns. If you have enough of one color to make what you want, use that. However, most pattern books and magazines contain a few very simple designs, often made with large yarn and needles, to encourage beginning knitters. After you've made a few sweaters these will be Instant Gratification projects.

Bad Poetry: Yarn That Makes Me Scream

Photo from The Twisted Yarn

There is another

Wal-Mart a few blocks

from the computer

repair shop. I went

in for some things the

first store'd run out of.

On a display shelf

out in the main aisle,

yarn! Screaming red and

battleship gray yarn

deeply discounted:

90% off!

Staff said that Wal-Mart

had found that store brand

yarn didn't help when

prices inflated

so there would never

be any more of

this yarn, in screaming

colors or neutrals.

Nobody liked when

store brand yarn seemed to

be raising prices

on the cheap stand-by.

So home, with cleaning

fluid, some groceries,

and this red yarn that

screams from the basket,

Look at me! Knit me!

Make me a blanket

that will scream "Bedtime"

to boisterous tots,

shrieking beside the

more sedate gray one,

each trimmed with other,

matching dye lots!

This week's prompt at https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2024/09/friday-writings-143-what-makes-you.html was "What makes you scream?" I've never been much of a screamer, though I can manage a loud rant or even a bellow. My voice does not reach that shrill pitch easily. And I wrote a loud rant last week; I owe you something that is fun, this week. So picture me knitting a one-piec, single-bed-or-couch-sized blanket that defines the phrase "screaming color."