How I spent my Thursday

I woke late in the morning, but that was due to a decidedly odd sleep.  I would sleep, wake, sleep, wake, and finally watched almost a whole movie in the middle of the night before I could sleep again.  I suspect it is some stress from waiting for the job to start. (The same thing happened last night.  I obviously need to knit more today and do nothing else!)

With the late start, playing with my Sweet Thing yesterday was shortened.  She is growing up so fast and has an adorably quirky sense of humour.

Here she is playing she is mommy on the computer.  She knows she is not supposed to be at the computer, but she sneaks in a little of this everyday.  

Then I managed to meet a sister in law for lunch. We arranged it so we could have a good long lunch by meeting at the seriously fine food place right next to the yarn store.  Fife and Dekel is a place not to be missed when you are looking for great places to lunch in Edmonton.  And yes, you want to make sure you have room for pie.

Well and then there was that part of one being right beside the yarn store.  A very short walk to my work of the afternoon.

I filled in for them for staff that was on vacation a few times over the last few weeks.  Just a few hours here and there, and it has been so much fun.  How lovely to talk about yarn with my people again.  

It has also been wonderful to be on the cusp of the new things as they arrive at the store, and believe me, there is new stuff coming in all the time.

Yesterday was book day.  A huge shipment came in with some great crochet books, reference texts, and this.

150 Scandinavian Motifs by Mary Jane Mucklestone .  I first saw this book at Interweave Knitlab last November, and knew that I would get it.  There wasn't any rush.  This is the kind of book that will be around for a good long time.

It's classic.  Instructions enough to get a good feel for how to make the designs work in your knitting,  a few projects to practise the colourwork, but just a few basic projects, a full colour directory showing all the motifs in the book, and finally the catalogue of motifs fully charted, in colour, with full colour photos of the samples and alternate colourway charts of most.  

It isn't going to include every motif used out there.  I don't think there is any such thing as a 'definitive' dictionary of motifs.  Knitting is a living craft and there is always new stuff within the framework of the knit stitch but this book is a really great start.  It gives you a really great selection of designs and talks just enough about how to combine them, and how to use them to start making your own imagination come alive to the possibilities.  

I like that in a book.  Books have always made my imagination come alive and I can travel the world in my imagination in a knitting book, just as easily as I can travel it in a novel.  

I have Mary Jane's 200 Fair Isle Motif's

as well.  The pair is a seriously great addition to any knitting library.  

So now, at least for a couple of hours, I have something lovely and new to read and I don't have to dig into boxes and under piles to find just the book my eyes want to see.  Its right here!  

Time for a coffee, and a pair of socks to knit on, and I am going to sit a spell, and do just that.  It was a great Thursday and Friday is looking pretty darn good too.