Two new books I've been looking at (both came yesterday afternoon. Amazon Prime is probably not good for me, financially-speaking, but I love it...you can order a book and have it 2 days later. Faster even than finding time to drive to the Books A Million, and Amazon is far more likely to have what I want).

First off is the famous Knitter's Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes. Yes, the Clara of Knitter's Review, just in case you're not familiar.

It's a fascinating book and one that I think merits a place on your reference shelf if you're a knitter who either likes to substitute yarns in patterns, or design on your own, or understand some of the "how" and "why" of yarn. And there are about 40 patterns in it - most of them fairly basic but there's a very cute cabled vest and a number of sock patterns. And a mitten pattern called Norwegian Snails that almost killed me, it was so cute.

And it's a nice hefty book - in this incarnation, it's hardbound (I don't know if it's destined for paperback). It FEELS substantial (that's important to me, somehow, in a book.)

Two things that made me chuckle - the "tree of fibers" on the end papers (it's a bit like a family tree, and a bit like the phylogenetic diagrams I discuss in some of my classes...). And the idea that there are "microspinneries." I hadn't thought of them in those terms (by this, she means places like Blackberry Ridge that do small quantities of yarn, compared to the big companies, and often who do it in a more "traditional" or antique-processing method). But I like that - just as there are microbreweries, there are microspinneries. Hah.

I certainly haven't read the whole book - I skimmed some of the sections on the different fibers, and read the stuff on microspinneries, and looked at the patterns, but I think this is a book you need to take some time with.

As I said: good reference book to have on the shelf. If you had limited book-space, I'd say you might want the Barbara Walker treasuries, and "Knitting in the Old Way," and maybe the "Knitter's Handy Books" of patterns, possibly one or two of the "Folk [whatever]" line if you're particularly interested in that, and then this book.

(In a way, Clara's book puts my in mind of "Knitting in the Old Way" - it's a different SORT of book but it has the same kind of empowering, "you can do this once you're armed with a little knowledge" attitude).

The second book is called "Knitting New Scarves" and is by Lynne Barr and Tyllie Barbosa. This is quite different from Clara's book in the sense that it's a book of patterns, only, and they're patterns that, for lack of a better term, aren't PRACTICAL in the sense of "I need a warm scarf that will knit up fast." These are more art-scarves, or architectural knit pieces. That's not to say I'm not itching to make a couple of them because they are cool-looking and I think they'd be fun to knit - I particularly like the ones that are sort of three-dimensional, where they are kind of triangular in cross-section. There's also a wavy scarf - that has permanent waves! - that looks fun to try. (My one concern is that it might be hard to substitute yarns; I haven't really looked that hard at the patterns yet). The scarves ARE more of "showpiece" type items than mufflers...but I'm still intrigued by the construction of them. I'm definitely going to at least try a few...I may not finish them but what seems to really be valuable here are the techniques...there are lots of different things that could be put into practice in (especially) toymaking but also perhaps if you wanted to knit one of those "non-Euclidean sweaters"....