I've developed (you may have noticed) a fondness for shawls, usually wearing them instead of scarves in the cowboy bandanna mode popular among knitters that puts all the patterning and colour down one's front instead of one's back. Even the laciest provide a surprising amount of warmth and insulation when they're made of wool. Having a variety of colours, weights/thicknesses, and lacinesses/solidities to choose from depending on weather and mood brightens up the day. And they're fun to make.

And because the pile of patterns I have yet to make doesn't seem tall enough, I've now added Very Busy Monkey's Shawl Collection 8: Scientists 2 to the heap. Because Darwin is utterly fabulous, Jacques Cousteau is also great, and while Tesla seemed fairly ordinary in comparison, a closer look has shown me that there's a lot of interesting texture stuff going on in that border. And there's two more shawls yet to be designed (now that I own the book I'll just automatically get those once they're ready)

Adding a five-pattern ebook to my to-make pile might not seem like a biggie, but y'see, last week I bought Josh Ryks' Tragedies of the Bard. And the final pattern in previously-purchased Betiko Collection was released recently. And I've owned Very Busy Monkey's Shawl Collection 4: Elements for quite a while. A few other collections as well (though I've at least finished or am in progress on something from those). And then there's the numerous individual patterns ...

I'm trying not to think about the recent sock collections I've acquired ***cough Op-Art, Coop Knits cough***. And the fact that I keep going back and eyeing the recently posted Burgess collection. And Coop Knits 2. And Cookie A.'s Knit. Sock. Love. And Hunter Hammersen's three Curiosity Cabinet volumes: one, two, three (Hammersen is doubly evil and dangerous because she's also responsible for Curls)

I love this world of being able to buy direct from designers, and that for once the good ones are actually earning a living from their creativity and hard work thanks to this arrangement. But it's very very dangerous. ;p

Tags: knitting