Episcopalian chiffon

I have been meaning to blog since, oh, Tuesday, but I didn't think my work computer had a graphics editor, and I just knew the picture of Jino I put in my gallery needed to be cropped. (I do, and it didn't. My week has been like this.)

Episcopalian chiffon was in the subject line of one of my junk emails. It sounds like one of those band names where you take two completely different and unrelated things and mash them together. I wonder if Episcopalian chiffon is any better than Presbyterian pound cake, or Catholic creme brulee.

On New Year's, due to prolific amounts of snow, we were unable to go to Albuquerque to play boardgames with Ben & Kat. So we stayed home and played Star Wars Trivial Pursuit (DVD Edition.)



Oh oh! Today, I must swoon about a book. Victorian Lace Today, by Jane Sowerby, is to die for. It doesn't matter if you have a severe aversion to knitting lace, or just thinking of it makes you break out in hives...you have to look at the pictures in this book. I thumbed through it nearly two months ago, and put it on my "to buy" list. Last night, I sat with it and went through it, page by page, three times. Once to read it, once to look at the lace, and once to look at the backgrounds. They shot pictures for the book in England...in castles, in gardens, Cambridge, and it just takes your breath away. Here's one picture...but it doesn't even begin to skim the surface of the backdrops. But it gives you an idea. And the history! Pictures and little blurbs about the first knitting books, back when they didn't use abbreviations! Instead of writing *yo, k2tog* 17 times, they would write out "yarn over, knit two together" seventeen times! Can you imagine reading one of those patterns? And they were written out from "receipts," orally received versions of a pattern. And then, and then, she takes these old receipts, deciphers them, and puts them together to make the most beautiful shawls I have ever seen. She writes the patterns in a very awesome way, breaking it down to method, etc. AND THEN, she shows you how to design your own! There are tips for adding knitted on edging, including how to wrangle it for turning corners. And the colophon! More! One shawl, she takes a very wide knitted edging, and smacks two bits of it together, so you have this gorgeous stole type shawl that is just beautiful. It's all edging! I wish I could describe it better, but words fail me. It's just so...me. I got all misty looking at the pictures. I wanted to bring it to work today so I could carry it around like a security blanket. Since I didn't, I'm suffering from separation anxiety. Only 2.5 hours left until lunch!