All Tied Up

This week's SummerQuest challenge is to make a craft from a pattern. With so many great crafts out there, I thought I'd share mine.

I learned to knit in high school, and even whipped up some scarves and baby blankets, but dropped it somewhere around the end of college. About eighteen months ago, I picked up the craft again, and now I can't remember why I ever stopped in the first place. The patterns feed my precise librarian's soul, the colors and textures of the yarn nurture my artistic side, and when I just need to zone out, there's nothing like a long stretch of repetitive stockinette stitch to soothe me.

One of my favorite knitting writers is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, or as she calls herself on her blog, The Yarn Harlot. She has one how-to book, but in general, she writes essays and reflections on life, knitting, and the intersection of the two. She's hilarious, she's down-to-earth, and she acknowledges two very important things about knitters.

The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death

If I could spend an hour inside Laurie Notaro's brain I would turn into a puddle from laughing so much. Her views on the world are so incredibly hilarious it's hard to imagine her capable of holding a serious conversation. From stairmaster repairs to a family of spies hanging out at the lodge in the White Mountains to getting carded at the grocery store on her birthday, Ms. Notaro takes her hilarious mean streak right to the edge, and keeps you laughing there the whole time.

Please note that if this book were a movie, some scenes and language would give it an R rating. Find it at a library!