WestportsKnittingLibrarian

THIS BOOK IS JUST PERFECTION

2015-02-13T10:56:00.002-08:00

I know I'm quoting from the fashion mavens when I use this term, but this book truly is perfection. It is rare that I finish a book and don't have a single criticism: not a single place that could have used just a wee bit more editing, or a little bit more explication.

The author describes her book as comfort food and that is an accurate description in all the right ways. And at the same time, there are those that would consider it cutting edge. Regardless, it is a story for everyone. Funny, edifying and heartwarming all at the same time.

I want to live next door to this family. I want my kids to be friends with them. I want to have them over for dinner. I want to go to their soccer games and plays and yes, Halloween parties.

Best Book Nominee!

MUST SEE AUTHOR EVENT

2014-12-04T14:47:00.002-08:00

If you are a cozy mystery reader, by now you have probably discovered Josie Prescott and the town of Rocky Point, New Hampshire. I had the pleasure of hearing the author, Jane Cleland, at the launch of the newest book in the series, Blood Rubies. Jane was engaging, endearing, and fascinating. She spoke about her writing process and the research she does for each book, and how she prevents the research from overtaking the writing. The best part is that you all have the opportunity to see her this Sunday, December 7th at the Westport Library at 2 pm. http://westportlibrary.org/events/author-jane-cleland-my-other-life-antiques-dealer?date=2014-12-07

Let Them Eat Cake!

2013-03-02T07:31:00.000-08:00

I have always appreciated (and admired) Anna Quindlen's writing. She spoke in Westport years ago and one of my friends was lucky to be able to go. She reported back to me on how "normal" Anna Quindlen was; that she is just living her life like the rest of us, but with the gift of perspective and an ability to comment on that life.

If you asked people of my generation to name the one thing that had most changed their life, I imagine most people would respond "technology". This book reminded me of what I forget so often: how much the women's movement affected each and every one of us. Whether you are a daughter, a son, a husband, father, wife, or mother, your daily expectations are different from what they would have been absent the women's movement. Without email, we would still have mail. Without the very laptop I am typing on we would still have paper and pen. But without the women's movement, the world would be a very different place. When my children were little, their doctor was a woman, their dentist was a woman, their teachers were women -- I used to wonder if they knew men could do those things as well. So I understood when Maria asked her mother if men were allowed to be Secretary of State. I owe a debt to all the women who came before me. Perhaps the greatest indication of this is that my daughter does not even know that she does too.

SOCKS, SOCKS AND MORE SOCKS

2013-02-16T04:39:00.001-08:00

For years, I have wanted to move beyond knitting rectangles. Yes, you know who you are out there. We knitters of scarves and blankets who fear the word gauge. Well, I am lucky to work with the nicest people in the world. They encourage me to try new things every day.

My officemate (Westport's real knitting librarian, but she doesn't blog) has been knitting socks for years. She even took 2 different sets of classes at our local knitting store. But the class schedule didn't work for me, so she said she would teach me. She gave me this pattern for a basic sock, and started a pair herself. As we got to each new step, she would demonstrate it for me, and we knitted our socks side by side. For the second sock, I did it on my own, but made sure she was nearby when I was doing the heel gusset.

The yarn does all the work here. The pink/red ones are Regia and the blue/gray are Berroco. I am on my third pair now (Stroll) and I have bought enough sock yarn from WEBS and KnitPicks to last for many years. I even found a pattern in a new library book for a Sock Yarn blanket to use up all the leftover bits. It will be a long time before I have enough for that. Hmmm, perhaps a scarf instead?

HEARTBROKEN

2012-12-19T07:09:00.000-08:00

As I watch the news, day after day, the inevitable happens. On Friday, it was news all day -- no commercials. By Saturday, the commercials were back. And today, Wednesday, as we continue to claim we will never forget, the top story was no longer Sandy Hook Elementary School, but the winter storm out west.

I have been struggling with this - how will we remember these people? Yes, they will never be forgotten by their families, friends, classmates; but what about the rest of us? One of the ways time heals all wounds is by letting us forget. In The Fault in our Stars by John Green, one of the characters, Augustus Waters, talks about how there are 7 billion living people and 98 billion dead people. So if we could each remember 14 people, theoretically the living could remember all of the dead. He continues that the problem is that we are "disorganized mourners. So a lot of people end up remembering Shakespeare, but no one ends up remembering the person he wrote Sonnet Fifty-five about."

I know I will have trouble remembering 26 names 10 years from now. But one name? Surely I can remember that. I can remember one person every day. But how to go from disorganized to organized mourners? Then it came to me. There were 26 victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School and there are 26 letters in the alphabet. If we go in alphabetical order (I am a librarian, after all) by our last names, no one will be forgotten.

So here is your assignment -- remember one name, and pass this list on so that everyone will be remembered. Of course, you can remember more than just one name. If you are so inclined I would suggest remembering those people "assigned" to last names that begin with Q, X, Y or Z. [This list is taken from the Sunday New York Times.}

A - Charlotte Bacon, 6
B - Daniel Barden, 6
C - Rachel Davino, 29
D - Olivia Engel, 6
E - Josephine Gay, 7
F - Ana Marquez-Greene, 6
G - Dawn Hochsprung, 47
H - Dylan Hockley, 6
I - Madeleine Hsu, 6
J - Catherine Hubbard, 6
K - Chase Kowalski, 7
L - Jesse Lewis, 6
M - James Mattioli, 6
N - Grace McDonnell, 7
O - Anne Marie Murphy, 52
P - Emilie Parker, 6
Q - Jack Pinto, 6
R - Noah Pozner, 6
S - Caroline Previdi, 6
T - Jessica Rekos, 6
U - Avielle Richman, 6
V - Lauren Rousseau, 30
W - Mary Sherlach, 56
X - Victoria Soto, 27
Y - Benjamin Wheeler, 6
Z - Allison Wyatt, 6

WINNIE - THE - POOH

2012-08-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

I have listened to a lot of children's audio books, and this is, without a doubt, one of the best I have ever heard. First, it's Winnie-the-Pooh. The original Winnie-the-Pooh, complete with Bear bumping down the stairs and Piglet having "haycorns" for breakfast. Second, just look at the cast. I fell in love with Stephen Fry when he read the Harry Potter books (I used to order them from from Amazon UK. Sorry Jim Dale, but Stephen Fry is beyond compare.) And Judi Dench? Superb. Jane Horrocks does Piglet with what sounds to me as a touch of a Scottish accent but someone better acquainted with the British Isles might differ.

This is a book that adults will enjoy at least as much as the kids, perhaps more. There have been many laugh-out-loud moments, but so far my favorite is when Pooh is telling Piglet about their upcoming trip to the North Pole. Pooh doesn't really understand what an "expotition" is; he only remembers that the word had an x in it. Of course, timid litle Piglet doesn't hear the word correctly. He responds "It's isn't their necks I mind. It's their teeth." And if you want to improve your childen's vocabulary, they will learn (as Pooh does) that provisions for a trip include food. All in all, this is a wonderful way to introduce your children to the real (not Disney) Pooh.

MARCH MADNESS

2012-03-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am a sports fan, but the March Madness I am talking about is the 4th annual Battle of the Books conducted by School Library Journal. I can't believe this has been going on for 4 years every March and I just found out about it. Here's how it works: each year staff at the School Library Journal select 16 books published the previous year. Those books go head to head in brackets and are judged by other authors. Here is a link to this year's brackets: 2012 BOB Brackets The final round brings back one book "from the dead" to go against the final two.

As decisions are made, the judges blog their decision and the reasons for it. I have been able to keep up with the blog this year and am fascinated with their process. My only regret is that there aren't enough hours in the day to read all these wonderful books.

When I saw the brackets my immediate thought was that whichever of "Okay for Now" or "Wonderstruck" was eliminated would be brought back for the finals, but, having read some of the decisions, now I am not so sure. What do you think?

The Whole Loaf

2012-01-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

In telling the story of Hazel and Jack's friendship, Anne Ursu manages to make you feel the pain of rejection, the loneliness of being the new kid, the wonder of snow, the magic of being understood, and the willingness of a true friend to sacrifice. The prose is lyrical, with images brought to mind as clearly as with a brushstroke. But you don't just see it, you feel it. The references (I am sure I missed some) to folklore and Madeleine L'Engle are not overplayed, but help to pull the reader into the fabric of the story. No offense meant to Emily Rodda, but this book is everything The Key to Rondo could have been.
As an adult reading this book, I think the saddest lines of the entire book are spoken by the white witch "If you take him away, he will change. And someday he will be a man, and you will not even know him, and he will only think of you with a passing smile." But Hazel knows that when you are fighting to save a friend, it's not about you, it's about them.

Post-Depressive Past

2012-01-02T06:24:00.001-08:00

My recent reading has been determined by those around me in the most figurative of senses - the public library hold list. I have a number (okay, way too many) books out of the library and, as other patrons put holds on the books, needed to return them. Consequently, I read these three books in chronological order, and by the third book was so depressed I found it difficult to continue reading. All 3 books are worth reading, but this should serve as a warning not to read them consecutively as I did.

As someone born toward the end of the baby-boomers, and who grew up on the East Coast, I remember much, but not all, of the way Bill Bryson describes growing up. (My daughter has a warped view of how old I am, seeming to believe that all cars had manual transmissions when I learned how to drive - so not true.) It was a different time. Better? Perhaps. But definitely different. Rascism was okay, as were chemicals in your food and pretty much everywhere and smoking, again, pretty much everywhere. But people didn't live behind locked doors and kids played outside without adult supervision without fear of kidnapping. It was a simpler time when we didn't need (or maybe just want) as many material things as we seem to now. There's a reason why closets in older houses are small. People didn't have as many clothes. Do you ever watch The Honeymooners? Ralph and Alice were thought of as ordinary people, funny, but ordinary. Kids watching that show today think Ralph and Alice live at, or below, the poverty level. They had a two-room apartment and, while Alice didn't have a fur coat and they didn't go on vacations, they never thought of themselves as poor.
This is a funny book, not quite as funny as A Walk in the Woods, but funny. And yes, Bill Bryson, many other people remember George and Gracie. But, just as in A Walk in the Woods, Bryson notes all the things that have gone wrong with our "progress". In A Walk in the Woods, the concern seemed environmental. In Thunderbolt Kid, it is the demise of small family-held farms and real downtowns with individual stores. Things we cannot get back and don't really comprehend the impact of their loss until reading this book.

I don't usually read Stephen King. He is too scary for me. But this was a good book and I'm glad I invested the time to read it. We all know from the reviews that this is about a high school English teacher who goes through a time portal to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Spoiler alert - the time portal puts him into the late 1950s so he spends years in the past waiting for Nov. 22, 1963. So once again I was reading about how much better the past was. I didn't see Bill Bryson in the bibliography but perhaps Steven King was using his own memories. Food tasted better, the air was cleaner (hard to believe with all those factories) and life was simpler. You could even get used to being without the internet! I don't particularly like the ending, but then, this is Stephen King so I should not have expected a happy ending, should I? Although the ending is happy in its own way. Since I was too young at the time of JFK's death to really remember the impact on the country, I was surprised to read that it tore the country apart. (Here again my daughter seems to think that I should have a clear memory of this time and that might be why these books affected me this way. Not true, dear, I was little.) Sadly, I was not surprised at the ineptitude of the government in its dealings with Lee Harvey Oswald. It is clear that King did a great deal of research for this book and the timing of its release to coincide with the 50th anniversary of JFK's presidency could not have been better.
Would the world be a different place if Jack Kennedy had lived? For sure. Would it be a better place? We'll never know. But Stephen King certainly gave me a lot to think about.

Next up were Jackie Kennedy's conversations with Arthur Schlesinger recorded in the spring following her husband's death. That is how she refers to it: Not when Jack was murdered, not when Jack was assassinated, but when Jack died. I had just finished reading 900 pages of Stephen King, hoping against hope that Jack Kennedy could be saved (yes, I know in the real world he wasn't). Perhaps because of that, I felt like JFK had just died. It felt wrong to even rate the book on Goodreads because it is just so personal. There were parts of the book, for example when she talks about JFK's relationships with his children and with his brother Bobby, and JFK's back problems and his plans for his life after the presidency, when I just wanted to weep. And the pictures, oh, the pictures.
On a purely analytical note, this book shows just how much the role of women in their marriages and the role of the president's spouse have evolved in 50 years. If you are looking for an insight into JFK's presidency, there are better books. But nothing could make you understand better the impact of his death on his family. Jackie Kennedy went from being First Lady to being a single mother of two small children needing to find a new home for them in minutes. I also got a better appreciation of their marriage. Marilyn Monroe and all the dalliances notwithstanding, for a few short years we all had Camelot.

OVER THE MOON ABOUT MOON OVER MANIFEST

2011-10-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

Have you ever finished reading a book and you want to immediately go back to the first page and read it again? That's exactly what happened to me with Moon over Manifest. If I could, I would give it 6 stars on Goodreads -- yes, it's that good. This is the story of a girl, sent by her father to live with friends one summer during the Depression. But it is a story of so much more. In her search for her father's history in town, she discovers the history of the town through the era of the immigration, the coal mine and the company store, and WWI, and revives the heart of the town. Yes, I cried. And so will you.

Trailer for Windblowne by Stephen Messer

2011-06-18T05:34:00.000-07:00

Here is my second book trailer. This is for a book which I just love for so many reasons. I hope everyone that reads this post will read the book. And yesterday I got a message from the author that he had seen and liked the trailer. It really doesn't get any better than that.

Trapped by Michael Northrop

2011-06-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

I just created my first book trailer. Quite exciting (at least for me). One thing I learned from doing this is that you have to be passionate about the book. I can't imagine doing this much work for a book that didn't excite me. So here it is - my Trapped trailer:

"Okay for Now" is A-OK

2011-04-18T04:15:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a longer post than usual, so if all you are interested in is the new Gary Schmidt book, just go to the second half. I feel compelled to tell you how I started reading Gary Schmidt. One summer while I was shelving books at the Westport Public Library a friend came to the Children's Room. She was looking for a copy of "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy". She told me that her family had listened to "Lizzie Bright" in the car and the language was so beautiful she had to actually read it. Of course I took it out next. It took me few tries to get into it - I thought it was 'yet another' sports book. I know, how wrong could I be? I would say I was blown away by it, but given that Schmidt's writing is so good he even makes the air a character, that would be hackneyed.

That parent was right. And if I were an English teacher, I would give every student a copy of "Lizzie Bright" as an example of how to have your reader experience the book, rather than merely reading it.

So then a colleague started talking about "The Wednesday Wars". And I'm thinking - Vietnam, Long Island - can Schmidt pull it off? So I delayed and delayed until I had to read it for a course last year. And that's when Gary Schmidt became my new favorite author. Yes, it was just like the cliche - I laughed, I cried. But I didn't just laugh, I was shrieking with laughter. And I didn't just cry, I was sobbing. A truly phenomenal book (and it doesn't hurt that I'm a Yankees fan).

So when I heard that the sequel was coming out, I felt a great deal of trepidation. Could Schmidt succeed again? I got the book last week and waited to read it. I kept telling myself not to expect a book as good as "The Wednesday Wars". I started it Saturday night and put it down after a few pages. I was so upset that the book was not about Holling Hoodhood, but about Doug Swieteck. I really didn't care about Doug Swieteck; I wanted to find out how Holling's family was doing.

But on Sunday, faced with my taxes and assigning Library of Congress call numbers to my imaginary library for class, "Okay for Now" was much more appealing. So I read it. And yes, I laughed (not out loud) and I cried (maybe not sobbing but more than just a few tears). And it's a really good book. Almost as good as "The Wednesday Wars". Let's put it this way -- if on a scale of 1 to 10, "The Wednesday Wars" is a 12, "Okay for Now" is a solid 10, maybe even a 10 and a 1/2.

A few personal notes:
When my son was in elementary school, he did a huge project on John James Audubon.
My daughter and I still laugh about a joke about the arctic tern from Whose Line Is It Anyway?
If you want to know what these have to do with Okay for Now, you'll have to read the book.

And those smart-ass things Doug Swieteck says to his teachers -- that would be me.

WINDBLOWNE

2011-03-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

I am one of those people who has always been unsettled by the wind. I don't know why, because it's not like I was ever in a house or a car on which a tree fell. But for some reason, on those nights when the wind picks up speed and howls, I feel an anxiousness not justified by my life experience. This book may help me with this in the future.

I don't want to give away the plot, and I wish I could somehow convey how charming this book is. It's about a boy who lives in the town of Windblowne, which is a town in the tops of the oak trees. It's about family. It's about finding yourself. It's about saving the world. It's about sentient kites. It's wonderful. Stop reading blogs and go read this book.

STOLEN CHILDREN

2011-02-06T11:01:00.000-08:00

This book, by Peg Kehret, is one of the nominees for the 2012 Nutmeg Award for grades 4 - 6. It has to be one of the most terrifying books I have ever read. I am curious whether others will agree. Is this book so scary to me because I'm a mom, and will the parts I find most terrifying not cause even a blip for a 4th grader? Or will they find the parts that I find a little too unbelievable the most scary?

Here's the basic premise of the book: Amy, a 14-year-old girl, takes a babysitting job. While there, she and the 3-year-old she is babysitting are kidnapped. The rest of the book deals with Amy's attempts to escape. These attempts are complicated by the fact that she won't leave the 3-year-old behind.

Amy had previously disappointed her parents by failing to follow through on a pet-sitting job for a neighbor. When the neighbor told her father, her father returned to the house to talk with Amy about it and thus was late leaving the house for work. Then a driver ran a red light and killed her father. So Amy feels guilty:

1. If her father hadn't been late because of her, he would have been through the intersection and wouldn't be dead.
2. Her last word's to her father - "You aren't perfect."
3. Her father's last words to her - "I'm ashamed of you."

So now we have a widow with her only child kidnapped and the parents of a 3-year-old whose child was kidnapped. This is the stuff of nightmares for parents, as are those last words.

As someone who can vividly remember Hitchcock stories read when I was in elementary school, I wonder if this book will give kids nightmares. What do you think?

Wild Thing

2011-01-20T16:09:00.000-08:00

Knitted Wild Animals: 15 Adorable, Easy-To-Knit Toys

by Sarah Keen

Words can't do this book justice, but I'm going to try anyway. I confess I haven't made anything from the book, but my daughter has already selected the rhino for my next project. What I love about these patterns is that the animals look like real stuffed (is that an oxymoron?) animals, not those oddly shaped creatures that look like you were on drugs when you made them. The pictures in the book are clear, close-up and cute. The patterns read as easy-to-understand. There even is information about the real animals. Best of all, it really doesn't matter if you have the correct weight yarn or knit to the correct gauge -- the only difference at the end of the day will be the size of the animal you create! Sounds just like the ideal project for the knitter who wants to move on from making rectangles of various sizes (shawls, scarfs, blankets).

I told a friend of mine that I was going to buy this book. She asked me to order a copy for her. As she put it, "If I start now, by the time I have grandchildren [her oldest is 20 with no spouse in sight], I may have one animal done."

Your Morning Metaphor | American Libraries Magazine

2011-01-13T09:49:00.000-08:00

Your Morning Metaphor American Libraries Magazine

For all the poetry and Cheerios lovers, an article you shouldn't miss.

Are You Savvy?

2011-01-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

I confess -- I am one of those people that have to finish a book once they've started it. I actually can name the books I haven't finished (Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and What Happened Before He Shot Her by Linda George). I even finished Patton for a class after the teacher had told us we could stop. I thought I had overcome this trait. But then I forced myself to read 296 pages of a mystery hoping with the turn of every page that it would "get better". It didn't.

Now, finally, a book that justifies this flaw. Savvy, Ingrid Law's first book, is a true gem. And if I hadn't forced myself to continue reading it until after the first 90 pages, I might have missed it. At first, the book seems to follow a tried and true formula, making for very little in the way of an interesting plot. But then the book soars. It is full of twists and turns and wonderful fully developed characters. And messages good for readers of all ages, although we older readers will see them more easily.

The only bad thing about this is that I may have to give Twilight another shot - I only got through the first 16 pages the first time. Do I think it's another Savvy? Not by a long shot. But doesn't every book deserve a second chance?

Creating versus Consuming

2011-01-05T07:27:00.000-08:00

The Director of the Westport Public Library, Maxine Bleiweis, often speaks of how libraries have changed and how they must continue to change if libraries are going to continue to serve their patrons. One point she has made is how people now no longer simply consume information; with various web 2.0 tools at their disposal, they also create information. Anyone who blogs understands this. After all, we are blogging so others can read our thoughts.

But this point was truly brought home to me over the Christmas break from school. I created a Goodreads account about a year ago. For those of you unfamiliar with Goodreads, it is a Web 2.0 cite for books, just as Ravelry is a web 2.0 tool for yarn. I had been using LibraryThing to catalog the books I read, but when I got over a certain number (one or two hundred), it was going to cost me money! So I abandoned LibraryThing and moved to Goodreads.

I like these cites. They help me to recommend books for friends, keep track of books I plan on reading (no more little slips of paper!) and avoid those horrible times when I get 200 pages into a book to realize I read it a few years ago. Goodreads gives you the option of adding your own review. Sometimes I do that - particularly if I want to remember what I liked or disliked about a book. I never never thought of that as "creating content", it was a memory aid only. Yet over the winter break I got 3 emails from Goodreads about 3 different books I had reviewed, notifying me that other Goodreads members had marked that review as one that they liked.

So yes, Maxine, we are creators of content. Whether we know it or not!

Don't Write the Obit For Picture Books Yet

2010-12-17T12:15:00.000-08:00

Don't Write the Obit For Picture Books Yet

Some of you may have read the New York Times article on the supposed demise of the picture book. Read this article in Publishers Weekly for a more balanced perspective. Most interesting (to me) were the comments on how graphic novels and picture books enhance visual literacy, something definitely considered a 21st century skill.

"We Knitters Work a Powerful Magic When We Knit for Others."

2010-12-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

The title of this post is taken from Knitting for Peace by Betty Christiansen. Many of us have heard of the power of prayer shawls, and of the comfort they provide to their recipients. This book will take you far beyond prayer shawls. As the Christmas holidays approach, I have been asked to knit for several charities. While I have been able to refuse on cordial terms, a part of me wants to scream at these people "Are you crazy? It's only a few weeks until Christmas and NOW you are asking me to knit? Where were you last March when I was bored and looking for a good project? Do you really think I have spare time NOW?"

To assuage my guilty conscience, I looked at this book. These are not projects geared to a certain time of year. In other words, come February when I have recovered from my Christmas throw extravaganza, the charities in this book will still need knitters. You can knit slippers for soldiers, afghans for Afghanis, blankets for the homeless, the ill and animals in shelters (to soften their pens). You can knit caps for chemotherapy patients and preemies, security blankets for children, socks for Russian orphans and teddy bears for children with AIDS in South Africa.

Every project in this book has a pattern and contact information for the charity.

Revel in Ravelry and Organize Your Stash

2010-12-03T08:41:00.000-08:00

If there is one thing most librarian's love, it is applying order to their collection, whether it is a collection of books or a collection of yarn. There is an amazing free website out there to help you do this. Ravelry is a social networking site that has a place for you to "catalog" your stash. It will allow you to add your own pictures, notes and projects. You can keep a list of the needles and hooks (yes, it's for crocheters as well as knitters) and print it out for when you go shopping. To give you an idea of how this site can change your life, here's a screen shot of some of my stash.

Yes, it has the name of the yarn, a picture of the yarn and how many skeins I own. What you don't see are the notes: where the yarn is stored, what I may have planned, etc.

Once you have your yarn "catalogued", you can click on Projects within the yarn and you will be able to see what projects other Ravelry members have completed with this yarn. It will tell you the pattern, and if the pattern is available online, you can download it for free or for a price. If nothing else, you will get ideas for things to make.

This website is definitely worth a few hours of your time exploring. For the first time, I actually know all of my stash and can start working through it, instead of buying new. Okay, I probably will keep buying new as well. I think I may have a bit of a problem.

Take That! New York Times

2010-12-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

Continuing with picture books about knitting, one of the prettiest books I have ever seen is Shall I Knit You a Hat? : a Christmas Yarn by Kate Klise. Roger Ebert talks about the "willing suspension of disbelief" when watching certain movies. You need to engage in the willing suspension of disbelief when reading this book -- not to believe that rabbits talk, nor to believe that rabbits knit, but to believe that any creature could knit not one, not two, but yes, 6 hats in one night. Yes, this is technically a Christmas book, but the lessons of this book about caring and giving from the heart is a message for all.

There Are Cats in This Blog!

2010-12-01T10:08:00.000-08:00

I couldn’t imagine any better book to start my blog. This book combines two of my great passions – books and knitting. There Are Cats in This Book is a wonderful, funny, lift-the-flap (don’t worry – it can easily be repaired) book that any child would enjoy. It truly captures cats’ personalities. And for the adults who knit, you can knit the cats from the book! That’s right, there are Patterns to knit your own Moonpie, Tiny and Andre. I confess I haven’t knitted my own yet, but the instructions seem clear and not that hard. If you’re wondering what DK means in the instructions, I’ve looked it up. DK stands for Double Knitting Yarn. It is supposedly slightly finer than worsted weight. If you end up using regular worsted weight, I think the worst thing that would happen is that you would end up with slightly larger cats.