New online knitting magazines

Thank you all for the nice comments on my phyllotaxis hat and sweater! I’m sorry I’m being a flake about writing back right now, but I’m coming down with some kind of nasty, mucousy cough thing (soon to be accompanied by fever, if Rahul’s current state of health is any gauge) and feeling kind of tired.

Sick or not, I was excited to find not one but two new knitting magazines with free patterns today! AND the total lunar eclipse was wonderfully, clearly visible, to boot–I was afraid the weather would spoil it.

Here are the two magazines:

MetaPostModern Knitting

and

The Inside Loop

I also found this peacock washcloth through a passing remark someone made on Ravelry. I love it! This site has instructions for buying the pattern, though I haven’t called for availability.

My coworker sent out a link today to keming, from Ironic Sans.

And I thought this article about the possibility of life adapted to living in clouds was the most wonderful thing I’ve read in a long time.

Ugh. I hope I feel better soon. I have all kinds of excitement later this week and weekend that I don’t want to miss–knitting night with new people and a new venue, working at the business school Friday and Saturday, going to the new yarn shop that’s opening on Friday, meeting up with a friend so we can put together and mail a package of baby presents, going to another friend’s ice cream-themed birthday party.

Happy New Year!

A compendium of wonderful things for Chinese New Year:

Color photos of the 1930s-40s from the Library of Congress. They’ll rock your worldview to the core.

Big yarn sales at Whitknits (Malabrigo, Noro…) and Colorful Stitches (Jaeger, Colinette…). Plus SWTC Bamboo in Esquire is so freakin’ cheap now at DBNY–$21.25 for 2500 yards of DK-weight bamboo yarn, normally selling at around $13 per 250-yard skein. Long digression: In my knitting fantasy life, I’d buy a bag and make a Snapping Turtle skirt (or blanket), but, well, three things: 1) realistically, I don’t think I’d get around to that anytime soon, 2) my experience from my modified Ballet Camisole (original pattern from Magknits) is that SWTC Bamboo is really heavy and drapey, and might weigh itself down and stretch itself out to the point of being unwearable–wool for a winter skirt might be better; 3) I already have a bag of this in Navy that I haven’t touched, and I bet I could trade half a bag of Navy for half a bag of Esquire if I really decide a bamboo turtle skirt would be a good idea.

A knitted Death of Rats pattern–sort of semi-appropriate for the Year of the Rat, but also sort of wildly inappropriate given Chinese superstitions about death. But I like Terry Pratchett, so there you go. (If you’re on Ravelry, Kalani’s sister made an awesome Death of Rats afghan square, too… the Ankh-Morpork Knitter’s Guild group is making an afghan to send to Terry Pratchett due to his recent diagnosis)

A perpetual motion machine that was not thoroughly debunked and crushed at first sight when examined by an MIT professor. I’m sure it will be soon, but it was still kind of interesting.

Amazing sand pictures, like landscapes from dreams.

The Both Ways Shoulderbag from Anthropologie is on sale. I saw a blue version of this in New York and fell absolutely in love with it. I don’t know if I can spend $40 on it though. I bet it’s easy to sew, but I don’t know how to draft patterns (and I don’t know if it would be any cheaper in the end, once I bought all the fabric and notions!)

A Monkey of the Month club.

A lolcat I made for work.

I finally got the Ditty Bops Moon over the Freeway CD held for me at the library, but you can listen to it for free online at that link, too!

Another great find at the library: The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen. I’m still making my way through it, but so far I love it and just wish it were the Annotated Complete Hans Christian Andersen.

I picked up this book, No Sweetness Here, from Amazon for my book club, and threw in this other book, Hollywood Knits (by Bill Gibbs, not Suss Cousins) on a whim to get free shipping. I loved Macoco’s Greta Garbo sweater, so thought I’d see for myself what was in the rest of the book.

Happy New Year, for those of you celebrating it!