Knitters' Pee Ohh Arr Enn

I wrote the title so as to avoid the wrong listings on Google; you understand what I mean. Evil, wicked, bad, bad mail is arriving Chez CBM: Today I got catalogs from The Wool Connection and from WEBS, and yesterday the new issue of Knitters' magazine arrived.

Surprisingly, there's very little in Knitters' that caught my interest, since usually I like several projects in the Fall issue. The peach-colored jacket with the asymmetrical front is nice, until they put the ruffles on it. The cover jacket is also nice as a general concept, though I'm not crazy about the colorwork they put into it, and putting the tie right under the boob is just wrong, a no-brainer; you can't tell me they didn't notice that. Just add me to the thousands of knitters who pan the newest magazine issue; we're offset by the other thousands who love the whole collection. I think it evens out.

But the catalogs! Oy! These are bad. Bad, bad. Some are OMG and some are ooh, ooh. There's a new 100% luxury silk called Tao, 126yds for $26.50 from The Wool Connection.. So gorgeous but so painful on the VISA!! Those of you who missed it will be glad to know you can still get some Lily Chin Signature yarns there, too. But it's lovely to see a wide range of colors in Jamieson's yarns, so beautiful.

Then there are the new bags, the Noni and the ones from Nicky Epsteins 'Fabulous Felted Bags'. These mostly baffle me. Well, small fancy handbags baffle me in general. I carry a tote bag, and even when I was working, before I became a knitter I carried a fair-sized bag. Where's the room for the wallet, the planner, the cell phone, the lipstick, etc.?? Let alone the knitting?! Thanks, but don't try to explain it to me; it is just one of those unexplainable things. (Like gambling; oh, sorry, let's not go there.) So many of these bags have fairly large 'things' hanging off of them. Big, really big flowers. Nicky has one with at least 4 fuschias dangling. Do these really stay on, or do they get ripped off the first time you have to juggle purse, shopping bags, keys and so on? I'm just sayin'.

I like WEBS' layout, less on a page; more room for the drool - oh, sorry! There's a polo-collared pullover pattern, free with yarn purchase, shown in their house yarn, Valley Yarns Berkshire, that is just perfect for a couple of my Canadian knitter friends. BTW, I found that you don't have to buy X skeins of the yarn to get the patterns, just some of it, and there are quite a lot of these free patterns. And there are some luscious new-to-WEBS Great Adirondack yarns; these are pricey, but 600+ yard skeins. Two of these skeins and a bit of this and that, and you'll hit WEBS' 25% discount level.

Big sigh! OK, I'm going to go knit my Highland Triangle Shawl and try to catch up on some of my TiVo'd programs. And chant, under my breath, "I don't need more yarn. I don't need more yarn. Ohm."