Got the spring Interweave yesterday. Lots of interesting projects. I like Annie Modesitt's dolman-style sweater, and the pink feminine (I think it was a Norah Gaughan pattern) cardigan.

One of the things I like about Interweave is that they have a diversity of projects in each issue. This issue, they had a pair of neat socks, and a lace shawl, and some hats, and a grand-plan capelet chart, and a knitted Amish-style rug (that I kind of like even though I'm not sure I like knitting the "kitchen" cotton well enough to make a whole rug of it).

I also think I figured out part of my current distaste for Knitters, especially vis à vis Interweave (art-critic types, am I using that phrase right?): it's how the pictures are taken.

In Knitters, all of the pictures are taken outdoors, in a bright, sunny setting. There is minimal background; the focus is entirely on the garment and its model. In Interweave, many of the shots are interior shots, or if they're outside, there's some landscape-context for the shot. It's more of a "lifestyle" thing - you see the person in the sweater, surrounded by books or coffeecups or potted plants. Or you see him holding the handle of a shovel and standing in what you imagine is his garden. Or he's laughing with someone off-camera as he strides up a hill. I think the reason Interweave's pictures hook me in - and often attract me to a garment I'd not otherwise be interested in - is the context. I realize that the photos probably break some long-held rule of advertising or modeling, the idea that your garment is to be the utmost item in the shot, or that it should be in focus at the expense of everything else, but that doesn't do it for me.

I have a vivid imagination but even it needs cues to grab hold of. (The other thing is, and I've not sat down and done the count and the chi-square analysis to actually PROVE this, but it's my impression that there's a higher proportion of *smiling* or otherwise non-attitudinally-challenged looking models in Interweave. They look more like everyday people, and the models in Knitters look more like models to me.). I also like that Interweave often uses a range of ages, and sometimes even body types - in this issue, for example, the men's vest was shown on an older man. Who looks like he's out in his garden. Who reminds me of every kindly British vicar in the books I've read....and you see how it begins for me. The model makes me happy, or makes me thing of something comforting, and then I decide I have to have the sweater, because it will evoke the same feelings in me. (I also just liked the man's vest-sweater as a design; I think it's unisex enough that I can wear it just as well). The shots in used-book stores (a common location it seems for Interweave) really do it for me.

In contrast, the Knitters pictures make me think of people standing out in the California sunshine. Ho hum. The one time I was in California, it was hot, the sun made everything seem flattish and dull, and I was tremendously bored.

So I'm sure part of it is a very personal thing, when I say I like Interweave better than Knitter's - and I realized, only PART of it is that Knitter's has less diversity of projects (and fewer articles, it seems to me. They have their columnists but they don't have the neat "short dispatches from the knitting world" part at the beginning like IK does. Nor do they have the thought-provoking essays at the end of the issue - instead, they have an uninteresting-to-me "fashion" sketch previewing the next issue. Again, ho hum.)

I wonder if part of the difference - this just occurred to me - is that perhaps the people who design Knitters are primarily visual, and the people who design Interweave are primarily verbal, and that's why I like Interweave better, because it's more in line with how I experience the world?