Comfort reading

So I’ve spent the past couple of days tucked up under the duvet feeling very sorry for myself. (It happens. You push your body too hard, you suffer for it, and I have been burning the candle at both ends and in the middle, for good measure.) But to be honest… maybe not all that sorry for myself. After all, I get to do large amounts of nothing, except maybe a little bit of knitting. And in very good timing, the new Interweave Knits arrived yesterday, and Interweave Crochet today. Perfect.
This summer Knits is stunning. Useful articles (I’m very keen to try the toe-up sock thing) and quite a few things that I could imagine knitting almost exactly as printed — unusual for me. Love Norah Gaughan’s Origami cardi; love those spiral boot socks; but most of all I love this lace top. (Sorry for the titchy pic.)

As it happens, the night before this arrived, I was imagining something very, very similar. (Well, something initially more elaborate, but it got pared down.) So this one’s definitely going on the list. Although the neckline will have to change. (High necks and large bosoms? Not such great friends.)
The Crochet mag, though… not so very much. I’m almost always disappointed in crochet magazines. I pretty much grew up seeing knitting and crochet as two aspects of the same craft — close siblings, at any rate. I never understood the great disdain heaped on crochet. But I am starting to. The potential is absolutely there, but the manifestation… well, I just think crochet’s time hasn’t quite come yet, in the way knitting’s has. In the past six or seven years, knitting has grown up; there has been such a renaissance that even fairly amateur knitters have pretty sophisticated ideas about what can be achieved, and this is reflected in even the less professional zines and so on. But crochet has lagged behind, and while I see individual things that are just wonderful, I don’t think I’ve ever yet seen an issue of a magazine, or a book, or any collection of crochet designs that really gets past the obvious. For all the talk about “crochet doesn’t have to be stiff and lumpy” (absolutely true), it usually is. For all the claims about crochet’s flexibility and how well it lends itself to creative, form-fitting shapes and unexpected directions (again, 100% true), I always seem to see the same boxy silhouettes. And the same unimaginative shell-stitch-type patterns.
*sigh*
But, look how far knitting has come, and how quickly. Admittedly there’s always been Vogue Knitting (when exactly did that lose its place at the forefront, I wonder? Don’t get me wrong, I still love it; but it is clearly no longer ahead of the trend), but the real development has been taking place elsewhere. I think even Knitty, fabulous Knitty, has improved by leaps and bounds over the past couple of years. When I first saw it, I loved the idea; not so much the actual patterns. Obviously that has changed. So one hopes the same will happen for crochet.
Ever the optimist, me.
PS. I have a sock.
Pictures soon.