Strike a Pose

One day I found myself with a little time before I was suppose to meet some friends at Dewey's Pizza in Kirkwood. Rather than hang out in front of the restaurant, like a pizza junkie waiting for a fix, I walked down the block to the Kirkwood Public Library and decided to look at their knitting book selection. I found a whole cache of bound Vogue Knitting Magazines from the 1990s. I fondled the periodicals, but did not have the leisure to thumb through them and see what treasures of knitting gems awaited me between the covers. Fast forward about four months and lo there I was with the time to do just that. I gathered the stack up and found a sunny alcove and began the loving look through the pages.

I found 5 that I needed to get to know better, with my municipal library card I borrowed these babies. After two weeks with the VKs I decided, it is a good thing the nineties are over. There were some horrid fun fur sweaters and plaid, machine knitted suits that needed to die an early death sandwiched between the covers. The southwest themed sweaters only lacked the howling coyote, to truly be awful. But I also found some articles that I really enjoyed.The article with a very young Lily Chin, sporting a flip was particularly inspiring. She talks about learning to knit and then learning to rebel against all the rules of knitting. She reminded me of one of my knitting mentors, which of course made me spend some time at Office Max today making copies of selected articles for said mentor.

Despite some awful designs, some are as beautiful today as they were when first published. Timeless, would be the word for the above Lily Chin original. I love the soft, prettiness of the yarn and how it works with the cables. Of course, I have yet to knit anything out of a VK, my skill level is just not there yet. One day I hope to knit something just as beautiful from VK, one day.

I also liked the articles about chenille yarns, the Shetland Islands, and the article about knitting and literature was very charming. The journalist points out that in the story, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" Holly Golightly does not knit, her roommate does. Hmmm, Hollywood take liberties, never. All in all I have enjoyed my time with these magazines. It is going to be hard to return them.