I just ordered yarn. And BOOKS. It was my birthday gift certificates... I added more colors to the conglomeration of cotton for the mitered sweater (a red, a green, and a yellow, plus more of the variegated), and then indulged myself and bought a bunch of books. Normally I don't let myself buy too many books, because I've got two shelves full of knitting books already, and am slowly oozing into a third. It's ridiculous because I almost always knit my own designs anyway. I mean, why buy books of patterns I never use? But I do it.
Anyway, it was my birthday and time to indulge and so I did. New books on the way, to ooze into shelf three some more.
Can a girl ever have too many books? Really? Maybe when there's no more room in the house for people... and I'm not there yet. I have gradually begun clearing out my novels to make more space for my refrence section (heavy on the history, knitting, botany, and cook books).
A few years ago, I was forced, under protest, to take an English 100 class at Leeward Community College. (The professor who wound up with me later complained to the dean of the department that I was taking up space in her class that could be occupied by someone not qualified to teach the class. Hah.) At any rate, the last assignment of the semester was a research paper. And I, predictably, did mine on the history of knitting. The professor was a toughie, and scanned everyone's bibliographies into the computer and checked to make sure all the books and things we listed actually existed. When she did mine, she found a massive refrence on the history of clothing that I had listed was not available at the school library, so she asked me about it. I told her I owned my own copy. She shook her head and said anyone else, she wouldn't believe it, but from me? yeah, she believed me. She told me she knew I'd be trouble from the first week of class when I was quoting Mae West ("I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.") on a quiz.
I got an A, too.
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7 comments:
There is NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER too many books. Ever. Although, I probably couldn't bear to part with my beloved sci/fi fantasy, my knitting reference library is taking over the house too.. too many books...too many...NEVER TO MANY BOOKS!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY...
Too many books, that's like saying you can have too much yarn! I love that Mae West quote. I got grief in college once for using the word eponymous. And that was on my comprehensive exams for my degree!
I have books, but I'm bad about magazines - if there is ONE project in a magazine that I love, I buy it. The last time I moved - almost 10 years ago, I threw away a large box full of magazines - I can still remember some of the projects that were in those mags, and I STILL kick myself for throwing out that box!
My favorite Mae West quote is much more ribald!
You can never have too many books. Especially when Borders has a buy 2 get 1 free sale.
ah knitting books. How I yearn. I need more. More. MORE!!!
I buy the books in all good faith. But I hardly ever knit anything from them. I just like to look at the pictures...
Speaking of knitting history, I note that Mary Thomas agrees with you:
"Knitting, like other of its kindred arts, came from the East, from the Arabian peninsula, whence it spread eastwards to Tibet, westwards as far as Spain, carried thence and to other Mediterranean prts by the Arabs, who were the great traders of those days."
(The specimen of Arabian knitting silk shown in Fig. 82 is apparently lost except for its being in MT's book.)
Hearsay claims that Mary Thomas had footnotes & sources in her original manuscript, but her publisher said knitting books didn't have those, and took them out. Couldn't ya just spit, if true!
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