Book Review

Since I don’t have knitting pictures yet, how about a book review? Our weather has been storming for the past month, so these photos aren’t that great even though a flash was employed outdoors (curse me for not learning how to use this camera yet!!)

Okay, so here we have a book I have been coveting since its release, Knit Kimono by Vicki Square (Interweave Press).

I LOVE the kimono and Asian design, especially Japanese design, so this book was right up my alley, even if the idea of a knitted kimono is absurd.

Now, like many of you, I own several books published by Interweave Press, and like most of you have noticed, the photos in their books have a tendency to be blurry at best. No, you can’t disagree with me; you know this to be all too true. Pick up a random sock, mitten, scarf, or lace book, leaf through it, and notice the out of focus or poorly focused pictures on just about every page.

This book isn’t nearly as bad as some; in fact, it’s rather well focused, comparatively speaking. Additionally, there are many more photos of the garments than one normally gets with, say, Folk Socks or Folk Vest or Folk Hats or Folk Shawls or some of the newer scarf and shawl books.

Many are staged with the wearer in very lovely, even elegant, poses: hands outstretched at the sides, arms akimbo or raised delicately above her head like a ballerina in Swan Lake. Every kimono is shown like a wall hanging, a rod stuck through the sleeves to allow the kimono to hang at its most outstretched to display millions upon millions of tiny stitches.

The problem with this book lies purely in the design of the garments themselves.

No, I’m not saying the color is off, as some of the color combinations are splendid. I’m not saying the color patterns are off, as some look like lovely watercolors. Some of the color work and intarsia are for the extremely skilled.

I’m not saying the stitch is off, as some of the stitches are lovely and inventive. There are even ingenious stitch patterns that replicate beautiful Japanese fans, and some cotton mesh-like stitches that replicate a worker's kimono.

I’m not even saying that the designer was unable to replicate a pattern that works better in cloth woven from silk or cotton, as some of these are quite superb translations of said fabric.

The problem lies with the notion that a kimono, possibly the most elegant, most sensual, most sophisticated, and largest-sleeved garment ever created, could work in a yarn-knit fabric.

No matter how small the stitches, how fine the yarn, how infinitesimal the needles, a kimono sleeve simply cannot be made out of a knitted fabric using yarn, no matter what kind of yarn one uses. Nothing drapes worse or is more cumbersome than twenty yards of knit fabric hanging from one’s shoulder down to one’s wrist!!

When not displayed with outstretched arms, these women bearing these kimonos look like they are sporting the poorly designed sweaters of the 1970s, from patterns that were too tight in the body and too loose in the sleeves. Not to say that any of these designs are too tight in the body because of course they are not, but they do have the look of those bell-sleeved sweaters of the 70s and early 80s.

Take the first example, Reeds and Grasses on page 48:


Above we have the model acting like a normal person at work or at the mall, doing her best Julie Andrews imitation, singing "the hills are alive with the sound of music . . .":


Now, I suppose she continues to help her deodorant dry because she still can't bring her arms down to eye level. In this first one, she is clearly saying WTF?!?!?! In the one below, she is scratching her head, asking herself why in anyone's name did she put this thing on?!?

Now this very beautiful brick red Suikan on page 56:



I will admit, I am a sucker for this color. It's quite lovely. In fact, this entire concept is all lovely until the model puts her arms in a position that even remotely resembles normal humanoid activity. There is no way she can pull off all those yards of heavy knit fabric, and now this kimono certainly has the look of an ill-conceived sweater, with the sleeve ties trying to hide the fact that this garment is untenable.

Now, the one that is the worst offender, and in my book, the one that is not at all a kimono but an absolute monstrosity of yarn gone astray is Water and Sky on page 94:

Not too bad on a stick, but on a person?

Not to make light of very serious things, but isn't this a stress position? Could you really walk around with five pounds of yarn draping on your arms as you held them above your head? Clearly, this model is thinking WTF?!?!?!?


Plus, this one is pure ugly in terms of color and possibly stitch, but this is one where the image is not focused well enough to let one imagine the stitches. Granted, I am not a beige person, but even if this was in a lovely color like purple or teal or brick or a nice deep terra cotta orange, I wouldn't like this thing.

Which one of you would willingly wear this for half a day? What could you possibly do in this? Even after two hours of modeling it, surely the wearer would wear her arms out, which is why I say the ladies are bearing these garments rather than wearing them.

The Suikan’s sleeves (above), while beautiful, look so heavy that I doubt my husband could hold his arms up under that heavy yardage for more than five minutes.

What say you?

Lilies and Rochester Sheep (Ewe Review)

In keeping with my flower theme, here are some salmon-colored lilies.

I finally have some knitting to talk about but no pictures yet. I casted on for the Tometen modular kid's jacket for my cousin's baby shower. I've been dying to knit this pattern and the Baby Surprise by EZ, but all my siblings are done having kids.

I also want to get the Tomten book to accompany it.

I'll never finish it in time, though. The shower is this Sunday. She is having one of those mid-life "accident" babies; her youngest is 14 years old, the older two will be graduating within the next three years, and now she will have a newborn at 42+. Good grief, I would not want to be in her shoes, 60 when the baby graduates high school! How can one retire and pay for college at the same time?

Hi Amanda! (I hope you are still enjoying your move to Orlando!!) It's very likely a statue similar to the Rochester sheep can be ordered, but unfortunately, I have no idea who the artists were. If my memory serves me right, several different businesses commissioned them as part of the Ewe Review in 2001. As I mentioned in that other post, Rochester, Michigan was the only city that had a real live yarn store that carried real wool back in the 1980s (and perhaps even the 1970s). Someone else has posted pictures of many of the sheep here:

http://travel.webshots.com/album/16094087gAQlmEJRIx

There are about 23 or so sheep pictured; it's worth a look. Check out "Sheep in Wolf's Clothing," "Material Ewe ~ paying homage to Madonna because she was raised in Rochester (and went to Rochester High with my brother-in-law)," and "Lamb Chopper" on page 2 and "Lamb Armstrong" on page three. They will crack you up. My dermatologist's office is not in the middle of the downtown area where all the other sheep are located in this online journal, so mine was not part of this other person's photo journal. There were more sheep up and down the main drag, which is Rochestjavascript:void(0)er Road, so there are likely 30 or 40 altogether. It would be so cool to have one in my yard!

Lavender and Stellas

Everyone can use a pretty flower to start the day, and when lavender is in bloom, not much is more pleasing to the eyes or nose, except, perhaps, lilac, neon star dianthus or Sweet William.

The lavender looks very nice next to the sunny Stella d’Oros:

I love that name ~ Stella. It reminds me of Elaine (of Seinfeld fame) when she was stoned on muscle relaxers in Florida after sleeping on the fold out couch. While at the roast for Jerry's dad, she kept shouting "Stella!" Cracks me up every time I hear the name.

My sky today is a million times better than the dark grey thunderclouds that greeted me yesterday. Notice the small plane passing overhead; we are near a very small airport for small planes only ~ maybe three or four miles at the most.

He or she certainly picked the perfect day to fly. If you can't be up there too, enjoying the beauty all around, have a very happy day, and knit on!!

Nirve Lahaina Coral Teal Bike

These happy yellow wildflowers fill a field next to a pretty busy multi-lane highway on the way to Big Boy Restaurant, where I indulge in my favorite meal, French Toast:

As usual, I have no knitting to discuss, but here is a little purple-blue flower from the newly rearranged and enlarged front garden bed:

Last August I thought about buying another bike. I’ve moved so many times that I have no idea what happened to my 10 speed.

Hubby has a very groovy mountain bike, and I’m not so sure about that style, the straight handles, the fat tires.

I was looking at the Townie Electra, though, because of the flat foot technology where one can touch the ground and have a foot on the pedal at the same time without having to wiggle around. I’ve gained a bunch of weight, and I used to love riding, so I thought it time to change my laggardly ways and start to get back into shape.

Last August I had my eye on the Electra Townie with the Hawaiian trim kit ~ memories of my other “home.” But August is a bad time of year to decide to start biking; for one, the weather can be unbearably hot. For another, too much crap in the shed to easily store another bike. For a third, the beginning of a semester, let alone the fall semester is just too fraught with problems, so I blew off investigating further.

The biking bug has hit once again, and I figure I better get to it because with the new enviro rage to bike as much as one can, the price of bikes has to be going up.

I searched around, and sure nuff, the Townie has gone up $100. But you cannot believe the bike I stumbled across: OMGALMIGHTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the Nirve Lahaina Cruiser in Coral Teal
Look how CUTE this baby is, go on, look!!! Go to the Nirve site (click on the link) and select Coral Teal and then click on the image to embiggen (they have their site set up so you can't copy their photo).

Oh, Lordy, this bike is too beautiful to imagine.

And if you are a Hello! Kitty fan, you have to check out their Hello Kitty bike. The tires even have Hello Kitty faces on them instead of boring treadmarks (scroll down on their tire webpage to see 'em). I kid you not!!

I HAVE to have this bike!!!