When I started in the morning, The toe square for the second sock wasn't even half done. By the end of the knitting day, this is where the sock was at. It's not a lot, but it is really pleasing. My hands weren't sore or twingy or anything. They were just felt a bit tired in the most average of ways. It was a good kind of tired.
The end of a knitting day wasn't the end of the day. I have been meandering through my books, looking at designs, patterning of knits, lace. Looking through the library is like digging in my stash. It is endlessly interesting and very inspiring. I spent a long time today with this book, one of my old favourites.
This is not a pattern book as such. It teaches you how sweaters were knit before books and patterns were in every knitter's library. It is one of the most practical books to learn how to knit with you in the drivers seat, how to knit using your mind and the shape of your body to make comfortable wearable garments. It teaches you to think about shape and make your knits be that. There are no cast on 43 stitches in the book at all, but it explains how to know how many stitches to cast on.
And yet, this isn't a book of vintage knitting. When people use the word vintage, they are thinking of the shapes and styles of fashion knits from 1930 to about 1965. This book is about what came before. The one thing to keep in mind is that the book was written in 1985. The graphics may be shaped in a very 1980s way, but look deeper. Read, read, read it.
It has coloured every stitch I knit in a hundred different ways. It is one of the books that taught me to knit, free from numbers on the page. It freed me in the same way that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and Elizabeth Zimmermann did. What a gift these talented people gave me.
This morning is a baking day. We need bread, we need want some cookies. Some pastries might be nice for the weekends racing. But between baking, there will be knitting. Lovely free from patterns knitting. I am rich beyond measure.
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