I've often discussed the things I love about knitting itself; today I'm going to talk about two things involving the impedimentia (for lack of a better term) of knitting that I love.

First of all: knitting books and magazines. Now, everyone has their particular favorites. For me, it tends to be Interweave Knits and the Interweave-inspired books. I think it is in part because of the photography. I need a little "fantasy" with my knits - it doesn't do much for me to see a sweater simply spread-eagled against a brick wall, with no frame of reference. (Knitters, I tend to have a problem with for that. XRX tends to photograph things with very little frame of reference, out in the bright sun. And if there's a setting, it's some kind of anonymous big city. Of course it could partly be the colors and designs used in Knitters lately, but I think part of it is the style of photography).

I guess I'm mostly an "indoor" person, despite my chosen profession. And I like atmospheric lighting - I prefer outdoor shots taken on a slightly cloudy day or even a sunny winter day as opposed to the bright, straight-up sun of full summer. And I like having some hint of what is going on as the people wear those knits...I guess I like the fantasy that the photographer just happened to come on people who were out picking apples, or who were browsing in a used bookstore, or who were having a conversation over a cup of tea. For me, it makes the knitwear more interesting than just "Here. Sweater." and "Here. Another sweater."

(This may be related to the fact that I tend to be less interested in reading blogs that are merely catalogs of what a person has completed, with no commentary or no insight into their lives).

At any rate. For me, a happy way to while away an hour is to look at back issues of Interweave - or to pull Weekend Knits or Holiday Knits off the shelf and browse through them and think about what I might make in the future.

I recently bought "Scottish Highland Knits" by Sarah Dallas. I really like the book - it's not huge in terms of projects (there are something like 18 projects in there, and there are perhaps five projects using the same exact Fair Isle design on them). But I love the book because the photography's so gorgeous. (And I really, really love the chunky-weight cabled sweater - they show it on a man in the book but it would work equally well on a woman). And all the pictures are those kind of "mid narrative" pictures - there's a man and a woman, apparently living in an old falling-down Scottish house with gardens around it, and you get to see them reading, or walking in the garden, or curled up on the sofa, and it's all very cozy and nice and a fantasy that (or at least I imagine) that one could enter into by knitting some of those things. (It's funny...I am not at all susceptible to the lures of television or billboard advertising - and in fact, am often quite cynical about televised ads - and yet, I can convince myself I "need" a certain sweater because a Scotsman in a kilt is wearing it in a knitting book I read.) I probably will make a couple of the items in the book - no, most likely NOT using the pricey Rowan products featured, but still...there's a nice pair of Fair Isle socks, and the sweater I spoke of before, and a very pretty feminine "wrap sweater" (of which the largest size will actually fit me!*) and a pair of simple felted "scuff" slippers...

I love knitting books because they do offer a little escape. Especially if they have nice photography. (And I admit - I mainly look at the photos and descriptions or "blurbs" about projects, unless I'm actively thinking about making something. Unlike Dumbledore, I don't particularly want to read knitting patterns for fun.)

(*I've looked at some knitting books in the past where there were pretty designs but where they regarded a 38" FINISHED size as an "XXL". Needless to say, I didn't buy those books...because if I'm going to the trouble to size something up, I might as well just design my own.)

The other thing I love are the color names. Now, I'm kind of particular about how colors are named. The very simple kinds of names may not be that useful - "red" for example. "Red" can be almost anything. I've seen reds that were more bluish (in which case, I can wear them) and reds that were more orange (which generally don't look so well on me). There are bright reds and muted reds. "Scarlet" or "Crimson" are a bit better, as they rule out some of the other possibilities.

But I like descriptive names. "Cranberry" (provided it's accurately applied) tells me exactly what I need to know about a red. So does "Fire Engine." "Burgundy." "Red Maple." "Claret" (which IS different from "Burgundy"). I can envision all of those colors in a way that I can't easily envision what's meant by "red."

Another type of name I'm not so crazy about is the totally idiosyncratic name that has nothing to do with the color (or at least, has nothing to do with it that I can see). Rowan in particular is bad for this: What color, for example, is "Swish"? What is "Frolic"? I have a sweater made of "Crush Velvet," if you hadn't seen it would you guess it's a darkish burgundy color?

Mags Kandis (I think) successfully walks the fine line between plain, bald terms ("red") and weird, idiosyncratic color names ("Swish.") Her yarns have names like Damson and Earth and Nectar. (Okay, I'd have to think a bit about Nectar first if I didn't know what color it was already, but still). Dijon. Oyster. Raisin.

Just the names are enough to make me want to knit with it. (It's a fantastic yarn, though, too, and one of my favorites).

But there are color names that are more revealing than that. I've seen a lot of companies apply them to variegated yarns. "Fall foliage," for example - I can picture what that might look like. Or, (and Shibui seems to be good at this), applying "nature" names to yarn - "Stone," "Pebble" (which is a very pretty sock yarn - browns and a greyish blue). "Seaweed." Sometimes I come to want a yarn partly because of its color name.

I guess I'm more willing to forgive "weird" names when they're applied to sockyarn. A yarn I have sitting on my "winding table," which will be knit up into the Go with the Flow socks once I get a few of the ongoing projects completed, is Shibui's sock yarn in the color "Anime." Okay, "Anime" might not say anything to you about the color - but when you look at the yarn (especially compared to the rest of Shibui's palette, which is more muted), you kind of have an a-ha moment -it's very bright, blues and yellows and greens. Sort of like the candy-colored world of the "cute" version of Japanese animation. (And I will admit it: I bought the yarn partly because of the name).

Schaefer Yarns does this too - especially with their "Remarkable Women" series. Some of the colors "work" better for me than others. ("Billie Holiday" in deep blues...that works. The browns of "Julia Child"...well, they just don't really say "Julia Child" to me.) And for that, there's the added complexity - the color combination has to be one I like, but the woman it's named for has to be one I like as well. (I'm not sure, for example, I'd buy a yarn named for Eva Peron, no matter how much I liked the colorway.)

I do like "named" colors though, and I often come to think of the projects in terms of that name - my "Raspberry" sweater, made out of Mission Falls wool by that name; the "Thistle" hoodie, made from the gorgeous Elann alpaca of that color. Because I love words AS WELL AS colors, a well-named, pretty yarn fills me with joy.