Sock Yarn Shawls II

I'm not knitting as many shawls as I used to, but that doesn't stop me from planning and drooling and bookmarking patterns. If you haven't made the leap to shawl knitting yet, I may just have found the book that'll make you do it, Sock-Yarn Shawls II by Jen Lucas.





There's plenty to love about knitting lace with fingering-weight yarns -- and there's lots to love about this book in particular. The patterns have charts and written instructions. They're organized by how much yardage they take, which will help if you're looking for that perfect way to use a special yarn.  The introduction to each pattern describes how the shawl is constructed. (I'm not doing anything that requires me to cast on hundreds of stitches unless it's absolutely gorgeous or I'm suffering from temporary insanity!)

Wanna see the shawls that caught my eye?

Daylily 

Harvest 

Lycopod

I love reading about the history of quilts and quilting. World War I Quilts by Sue Reich provides a treasure trove of images and newspaper snippets. There are lots of signature and fundraising quilts, some neat red work sampler and crazy quilts, and  more different styles of Red Cross quilts than I would have imagined existed. This book provides a neat window into what quilters of the early 20th century were doing.

Disclosure - the publishers provided me with ARCs. Photos from Sock Yarn Shawls 2 are used by permission of Martingale and their photographer Brent Kane.