Rainy Day Book Review

Today is a rainy day in lovely Astoria, and I'm home sick with a nasty tummy bug. So to comfort myself, I've been knitting (on the second endless Breezy sleeve) and watching knitting videos.

I've become a fairly big fan of Interweave's videos (especially when they're on sale), and picked up the Introduction to Fair Isle with Eunny Jang, and Knitting from the Top Down with Wendy Bernard from the digital downloads a while back. On sale. A lot of sale. I really, really want to get the Reversible Cables with Lily Chin one, but it is $30, which feels a lot steep, and I haven't seen any good sales, discounts or coupons lately (hint, hint, Interweave, ahem).

However, today I've been watching the Sock Knitting Master Class video that came with the book, and it is awesome.

While a lot of the information in it is basic, I learned a great deal about knitting technique (even that which has nothing to do with socks) from it. Plus, Ann Budd is really really cute. I was mentally compiling a list of Ann Budd quotes while I was watching the movie, such as:

"Kitchener stitch: It's that easy!" (said in the style of an infomercial)

and

"There's nothing worse than running out of yarn on a bind-off. Well, there are plenty of worse things, but we won't talk about those today."

I've been reading Ann's blog since her first post, and she's got a wonderful warm writing voice. Also, she's currently knitting through all of the socks in Sock Knitting Master Class, in a kind of KAL with a bunch of other folks from the Interweave boards. (which, honestly, I never read. Ravelry is more than enough for me.)

Anyway, the book has some gorgeous patterns, and with the accompanying video is well worth the price of admission. I imagine super experienced knitters wouldn't get all that much out of the video, but the patterns... some of those socks are downright sexy, with all kinds of fun technique and stuff.

One of my favorite aspects of the book is that Mistress of All Things Yarn, Clara Parkes, writes a sidebar with each pattern about the types of yarn that would be most appropriate for it. She discusses the differing qualities of the yarns and why smooth yarns may be more suited than fuzzy yarns (or vice versa).