It has been nearly 6 months since I last wrote a post. This was due in part to the fact that my office was in the process of being remodeled, as well as the busy holiday seasons (Thanskgiving, Christmas, & New Year’s). I am glad to say that my office is now finished and looks quite lovely — but I am still unpacking things. I have made a promise to myself that when I unpacked the hastily packed boxes, that I would take the time to go through them and eliminate things that I no longer used, need or want. So far I have kept that promise and I am gradually putting the things I have decided to keep in their new homes. I have 4 boxes left to unpack.

One of the most difficult tasks for me as I unpacked was to sort through the many years accumulation of knitting and crochet magazines, patterns and pattern books. I love books. And I have a lot of knitting and crochet books. I am proud to say that I was focused enough to really let go of those that I will never use and those that are really out of date. I gave a few to some of my knitting friends, but in the end — most of the old magazines ended up being recycled. Are you someone who collects books and magazines? If you are — you know how much of a struggle it was for me to finally let them go.

But now — I have plenty of room for NEW BOOKS! 🙂

One of the changes that I have made over my 50 years (yes, 50!) of knitting is that I no longer buy knitting patterns, books of knitting patterns or those knitting magazines that you can find in your local supermarket. As I have written in this blog before, since I first read Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears, I have moved from buying patterns to buying books on techniques and stitch libraries. These days when I see something in a magazine that I think I would like to knit — I study it for the details — i.e. the design elements, the stitchery, etc. — and then I sit down and figure out how to knit it up without the pattern — I draft my own essentially. I find I am much happier with the results.

I am doing that now — what I have on my needles is a raglan cardigan sweater, knitted from the top down — size 18 months. I hope when I finish this little sweater that I will be able to develop another sweater calculator for doing top down raglan sweaters. I’ll post it when I am certain that it works correctly.

For those of you who wish to move beyond following written patterns — Elizabeth Zimmerman’s books are a great way to start.