Did you see Knit Your Own Dog: Easy-to-Follow Patterns for 25 Pedigree Pooches, when it came out? Lovely book on how to, well, knit your own dog. Charming, and somehow quite dignified photographs of knitted dogs throughout. The Jack Russell is my favourite. I blogged about it in March, take a look at the gorgeous photography.

And now the same authors have written a sequel: Knit Your Own Cat: Easy-to-Follow Patterns for 16 Frisky Felines. The paperback will be available in February, I can't wait, because (don't tell anyone) I'm more of a cat person than a dog person. It's their unapologetic hedonism and quiet disdain that I admire.

"Set the table."

"I can't, it's covered in mom's knitting books."

"Well, I guess we'll just have to eat in front of the tv again."

Does this happen in your house too? Luckily for me, my family has learned to live with (around, under) my stacks of knitting books.

Another thing I have to conceal from my family, besides the size of my yarn stash, is the size of my book collection. If Charles says something like, "This shelf didn't used to bend like this," I reply, "The children must have broken it." You can always blame the children. I do the same thing with my books that I do with my yarn stash. Break it into stacks, and rotate it from room to room so you can never see its magnitude.

This one, Power Cables by Lily Chin, is a nice little addition to the knitter's bookshelf.

I wanted to share one of my favorite books. Louisa Harding's designs are beautiful, but I think it's the styling and the photography that give them their captivating, ethereal quality. There's something about the photos that makes me think, "Yes, I could wear that vintage dress with that masquerade mask and stand in a field and look fabulous." And then I snap out of it. Louisa Harding's Cardigans is a great collection of wearable cardigans, several of them shown in different yarns, or with different sleeve lengths, which is a nice way to encourage a knitter's creativity. 

Why am I mentioning babies so much? No no, I'm not hinting at anything. But I guess I'm a sucker for cute stuff. I was skimming the Cascade Yarns blog, researching for the Cascade Yarn page, and saw this hat, from the new book, 60 Quick Baby Knits: Blankets, Booties, Sweaters & More in Cascade 220 Superwash. It's a lot of whimsy for one hat, but luckily babies can handle it. Check out designer Renee Lorion's Ravelry page for more of her designs.

Yesterday, as I was browsing books for the Royal Wedding post, and found another British gem. I don't have a dog, but would gladly adopt several of these from Knit Your Own Dog: Easy-to-Follow Patterns for 25 Pedigree Pooches by Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne. (Knit Your Own Dog is the American release, it was previously released as Best in Show in the UK). Apparently the book has been getting good exposure in the mainstream press. I always feel irrationally proud of crafters' succeeding in the non-crafting world. Hurrah! Hurrah knitted dogs!

No, I'm not obsessed with the Royals. But with a book like this, I'm considering it. My friend Teresa sent me a link to this yesterday: Knit Your Own Royal Wedding by Fiona Goble. Great timing for this book, with the Royal Wedding coming up, and the King's Speech leaving us all just that much fonder of queens and kings.

Needing a change of pace, and a birthday gift for a friend, I decided to tackle one of the patterns in Amigurumi Knits: Patterns for 20 Cute Mini Knits by Hansi Singh. I blogged about it earlier, but it was time for me to put my money (needles?) where my mouth (blog?) is. 

And this charming little fellow is the result. 

So today's post isn't about anything new, but rather a little bit of appreciation for an old favorite, Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac. Yes, some of the patterns seem a little bit old-fashioned (like the Nether Garments), but most of them are quite timeless, like the Aran Sweater or Baby Sweater on Two Needles. And Zimmermann's delightfully candid writing style makes her more forward-thinking than timeless. For example, when talking about gauge she writes:

GAUGE means the number of sttiches—or, if necessary, fractions of a stitch— to 1" in a given knitted article. Directions unfortunately recommend a definite needle-size for this GAUGE. Please, oh please do not rely on this.

Take some of your wool and the size needle your intelligence tells you might be right, and make a swatch. That is to say, suit the needle-size to your own personal and peculiar way of knitting. Do NOT try to get 5 stitches to 1" on a #8 needle if you have to work uncomfortably tightly to obtain this gauge ... Some of us do not like to squeeze our stitches; we like to knit loosely and placidly ... Experiment, for goodness' sake.

How absolutely practical. 

I know I'm not supposed to say this aloud, but Christmas will be here before you know it. So much knitting to knit before then. But sometimes, figuring out your knitted gifts is tricky. Not everyone wears scarves or mitts. Some people don't like wool. Some people might like it, but you know they'll lose it at the playground. Amigurumi Knits: Patterns for 20 Cute Mini Knits is full of great ideas for knitted gifts. Sea creatures and vegetables might sound a little unusual, but are actually quite adorable.