What's On My {Knitting} Bookshelf

My newest knitting-related book purchase:

Coastal Knits by Alana Dakos and Hannah Fettig. Why? Because I figure any pattern book with "coastal" right in the title is probably going to be a good fit for me, that's why! I didn't pre-order it, preferring to wait to see if any store near me would be stocking it (and thus not only buy local but save the shipping cost), and hurrah! I was able to buy it at one of my local yarn stores. This makes me doubly happy, because I'm not a very good yarn store customer, because I already have so much stinking yarn. (By all rights I should never buy sock yarn again.) So I'm happy for the opportunity to buy a pattern book, at least, from the local store, because it's the only place locally that sells Cascade 220, and I don't want it to go out of business. (When I need Cascade 220 because it's hat-and-mitten-knitting-season again, it's so nice not to have to wait for it.)

So, back to the book. I've read some grumblings here and there because it's not available to download, but I have to say, it's very lovely to look at, and I'm not sure an electronic copy would do it justice. (Although I wish it were spiral bound. All pattern books should be!) Alana lives in California, and Hannah in Maine, and they're both influenced by the natural environments around them when designing. Each pattern has an intro/inspiration/story board preceding it.

As someone who is drawn to and inspired and really grateful for the natural places where I live--also on the East Coast, a little further south from Maine--I like this addition. There are many lovely cardigans in this collection, but I'm thinking this is probably the one I'd make first:

The Water's Edge Cardigan, although I'd quibble with the assertion that it's a cardigan for all seasons. It looks like a late spring/early fall cardigan to me, and I'm not sure I wouldn't lengthen the sleeves even so, but then I'm shivering from October through April.

And then there's this little shawlette. I can't imagine when or where I'd wear this...

...but I want to knit it. It's the Sand and Sea Shawlette, and I'd need that exact yarn in those exact colors, simply to mimic the sand and sea. Every time I have my camera at the beach, I try to capture the chevron-like pattern the in-and-out of the waves leaves on the sand before it's washed away again, because I want to try to re-create the pattern in a knitted something that then flows into something else that mimics the foamy wave curling over the sand. But, right, I haven't quite gotten to that yet. Did you know, Alana and I taught ourselves to knit the same year (2002)? Sometimes I think I'm just plain doing something wrong, that I can't manage to do anything with my ideas... maybe if I'd taught myself to knit before I had the first kid...

So, that's what's on my {knitting} bookshelf. But the reality is I most likely won't be knitting anything from it anytime soon. I'm still working on mittens, and my daughter picked out yarn and then decided (when shown some options) that Like Sleeves For Kids would be a good use for it. And I kind of want to knit myself something crazy-stupid-easy to crawl into; it's been that sort of a week month.

Or maybe I'll just knit myself a little piece of sand and sea to tide me over...