Two New Books

I went to the dentist yesterday. On top of finding out that I have a broken tooth and need a crown and possibly ANOTHER root canal (the thing doesnt hurt at all!) But whenever I go see the beloved Dr. Rao, I always go to Barnes and Noble as his office is located next door.

They've moved the knitting books up to the third floor...right next to kiddie land...great.
Just want I want to be around when I'm looking at knitting books, screaming children and their frustrated parents who are unable to satisfy their children's every whim.

But, it's time to think about holiday knitting and as great as Ravelry is for inspiration, you still have to BUY the patterns.

So I picked up two new knitting books and here are my initial thoughts:

1)One Skein Wonders edited by Judith Durant
The layout of this book sucks. Once you get past this, the content is pretty darn good.
All of the photos of the projects are located at the beginning of the book. They are ridiculously small. The book is organized by yarn weight; i.e. it starts with lace weight yarn projects and ends with novelty yarn projects. But after looking through it, there are at least 10 different things I would and could make from stash RIGHT NOW. So I suggest you get out those little Post It tape flags and mark the photos and the patterns to ease your mind. I have NO idea WHY a publisher would have set up a book this way...

2) The Knitters Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes; Clara puts out the great Knitter's Review. This book is lovely---full of lots of facts and tidbits you always wanted to know about fiber---and not just natural fibers, but man-made fibers (even acrylics YIKES!)!! And there are some lovely patterns, again that I could make right now. Here's my criticism on this, and perhaps it was just because I was reading the book in bed late last night, but Clara divides the books my number of ply's. So she will give a project for a single ply yarn, like Noro Kureyon for instance; and then say something like (to subtitute, use xxx number of yards of single ply yarn). Well short of playing with ply's at the LYS, I really can't tell when I walk in how many ply's a given yarn has. It would have been helpful to have an appendix of yarn's by ply to provide some guidance. And seriously, how many LYS owners want you coming in and unplying yarn for kicks???

So thanks to Dr Rao for providing me with a visit to B and N to update my knitting library...