Testing Testing and a Few Books on the Side

I seem to be stuck in a test pattern in which I tell you I have forgotten my camera at home.  As it was yesterday, it is true again today.  However,

Today, I introduce you to my very own crap-cam!  Dave Barry, guy extraordinaire, has had one for years and though I wish to pay homage to him, I do not want to plagarise.  Consider mine d-crapcam.

Dcrapcam photos have been taken with my Playbook camera. Please forgive the quality. I think the lens is dirty.

I have been remiss in showing you my purchase for the month of February.  I have bought little wool (Mr. Needles is laughing at my definition of little, or maybe crying.  Hard to say.) but spent my budget on books that have long been desired for my bookshelf of lace knitting.

Barbars Abbey's Knitting Lace.  Of all of them, this one is the most conservative book buy,  conservative in that it is the least challenging.  If you want a good solid lace book this is it, though because it was published some time ago, it is very wordy.  Excellent illustrations mean you won't have a problem learning its magic.  I bought it because of its collection of lace edgings.  It has some that are unique even in my growing collection.  

The second is a collection of Niebling lace designs.  It is my first, and for a first, what a good choice.  You could go just a little crazy trying to figure out which to purchase, and I am delighted that this one is sound and quite simply filled with things I will knit with the many assorted balls of crochet thread I have.  It is white knitting  heaven. This was purchased from my very favourite place, the Needle Arts Book Shop a small online Canadian shop that give the most wonderful service.  She has a lovely selection of books.  Right now, with every Niebling book you buy, you also get a copy of the Lyra pattern, so it is very very good value for your buck.  

Heirloom Knitting.  What can be said about this book that has not already been said?  It is marvelous.  Insrtuctive of technique, history, patterns, and more.  It has a whole sections about mistakes and how to deal with them, how to avoid them.  Very few books provide that kind of advice and no matter how many times, I read it, I have no doubt I will need to read that part more.  I have just barely scratched the surface of what it holds.  I can see it being my close companion for a good long while.

And, my pièce de ré·sis·tance, a book I heard about, I don't know,  probably the second day I held knitting needles in my hand, the almost legendary Þríhyrnur og langsjöl

Three Cornered and Long Shawls.  Because no lace knitters library could be complete without it.  These designs speak to me in the ways that I value the most.  They are from a culture that arose, clinging stubbornly to life, rejoicing in what they had, with a history of the first parliament in 930 and a vast storytelling tradtion that is a thousand years old and that has fascinated me since the first years I could read.  I will forever thank my friend Frazzledknitter for renewing my aquaintance with Iceland and for introducing me to Einband.  My world of lace yarns would be incomplete without it.

I'll have to be pretty careful with the yarn budget in March again.  This treasure trove did not come cheap.  That's ok, though.  I'll just be in the corner somewhere with my nose in a good book instead.  It won't be as it was when I was a child.  

Just a little difference but it means the world to me.  This time I will have needles in my hands.