Weekend reading

It's been an exciting week for mail, but the highlight was definitely receiving my copy of Fearless Fair Isle Knitting:

 

I knew this would be a hugely informative, priority-for-the-reference-shelf book because I have several of Kathi's other books and because I read the introductory chapter while knitting the sample I was assigned for it. I also knew the photographs would be stunning because I've seen a few on Kathi's blog.  But in person? whoa.

More than the sum of its parts.

First we have to get out of the way the mandatory visit to the sample I knit.  I haven't seen it in such a long time, after living with it for weeks!

There are a lot of full-page photographs in this book, but I wasn't prepared for a full-page closeup.  I am so grateful I was careful about my stitches.

So very grateful.  Two closeups?  and oh, look, you can see how I stitched on the fasteners!  I spent some serious time deciding on the prettiest way to get them on - good thing too.

This book falls easily into the top ten of the most beautiful knitting books I own.  It's so peaceful - nice large size, lots of white space, stunning photography - and there are lots of good reasons to keep going back to it, from the easy Fair Isle tricks I mentioned to the inspiration potential.  This is one of those books with a lifestyle element, as in...

... if I knit and wear these mittens, I am totally going to feel like I'm agile and in a lovely place working with gleaming materials to some organically satisfying purpose.  (I'm also going to be using up leftover yarn from a larger project, because Kathi is nothing if not practical.)

The book is full of patterns I want to make, from the vest on the cover, which I would cast on for right now if I had the yarn in the house,

 

to this hat, which I think would solve the problem of what Christmas item to make for a guy for whom I've already made a lot of things and need to come up with something that's special for reasons other than fiber (hard to top qiviut) or length of time (one word: ManSocks.)

Oh, and these fingerless gloves.

I love the idea of eating something as delicious-looking as that sandwich on a cool-day picnic this spring, or next fall, don't you?

(and you know what? I have lightweight wool in pretty much those exact colours in my stash right now.  h'mmmm.  maybe this post should be called 'weekend knitting', not 'reading'?)