Fight! Fight!

Lucia (who should come to knitting at Barnes and Noble tonight :)) took up an argument with Marilyn at the Knitting Curmudgeon blog about the past quality of knitting magazines. To oversimplify the argument, Marilyn feels like 1980s knitting magazines were chock full of fabulous patterns and that today’s knitting magazines can’t hold a candle to them.

Lucia has been posting extraordinarily scary designs from her own personal stock of 1980s knitting magazines in rebuttal.

I think there are two issues here. One, we tend to remember the good things, and forget the bad things. So, the Vogue Knitting issue from 1994 that we remember so fondly might only have 3 nice designs and 10 designs of complete dreck.

For example, the latest Vogue Knitting. Marilyn says it isn’t worthwhile, and I would agree that there are some highly scary designs in it. But, there are a number of designs I adore. We all know of my lust for this capelet.

But, I think we can all agree that no one will ever knit this coat.

Secondly, what kinds of designs a person knits might not have a lot to do with their personal taste. For example, I’d buy this jacket.

But I’d never knit it. I don’t like intarsia, and the stockinette would put me to sleep. That’s a big reason why I don’t tend to buy magazines like Family Circle Easy Knitting - even the designs I like, I’d never knit.

On the other hand, while I’d knit this lovely scarf/shawl from Vogue Knitting in a minute:

I’m not sure how I’d wear it.

A third issue is personal taste - the cabled cover sweater with set-in sleeves that folks have been drooling over on Marilyn’s blog sends shudders through me. Yes, the cables are lovely and the nipped in waist is nice. I bet its an interesting knit. But the collar! And the shoulder pads!

Finally, I think we can all agree that Knitters Magazine sucks ass these days. That is one magazine that I think you can validly say used to be much better in the good old days.

In other news, I now order so many books from Amazon that they offered me a free four month membership in Amazon Prime. Which means I get free 2-day shipping until February. Rock! I keep losing control and ordering things. Such as Heirloom Knitting - the price on it keeps bouncing around between 50 dollars and 33 dollars. I just ordered it at 33 dollars. I also picked up a book for Kevin. That’s my excuse.

In knitting news, I’m still plugging away on the shawl. I’m almost done with the 3rd repeat in the second half, so I’m not worried about my deadline now. I’ll have lots of time this weekend to do a power knitting job.

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6 Responses to “Fight! Fight!”

  1. Lucia Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 9:49 am

    I LONG for the days of intarsia!

    I was planning to come to B&N. Due to the Sox victory, Jim may be scheduling a victory dinner. We have Champagne!
    I’m waiting to hear from Jim…. (If the faminy is coming, I need to buy Salmon, if not, I’ll be at B&N)

  2. Aimee the sis Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 11:17 am

    Apparently Franz and I are going to have to start some kind of injunction to stop you from knitting yourself a super cape. It is baddddd, badddd. Except on Franz of course, he looks great in his.

    If you knit that scarf I will wear it.

  3. Dana Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 1:44 pm

    I’m not sure whether the magazines are actually better or worse. MY shape has changed. MY knitting interests have changed. YARN has changed. Sometimes buying Vogue knitting is good just for the advertisements and announcements, not patterns. Sometimes one is in a good enough mood that ALL the patterns look good. (I have a summer Vogue issue from 1980 something that’s like that). I don’t like Knit1… but I’m old.
    Reminds me of buying music CD’s… sometimes you only like the one track that’s been on the radio… sometimes you like the whole thing.
    If a title (or band) has gotten inconsistent, don’t subscribe or buy automatically…!

  4. Lucia Says:
    October 27th, 2005 at 3:13 pm

    I don’t want break my roll over at my site, but I’ll say it here. The new magazines are no better and no worse than the old ones. It’s exactly as Gail said, there are rarely more than 2 or 3 you would knit in a single issue. I know this because I’m a pack rat. I have knit something from nearly every issue illustrated at my site so far. (Just not the ones I’ve shown.)

    There are actually good reasons why there are only 2-3 patterns any individual knitter would knit. First, consider: I’m built differently from Gail, my personality is different, and my circumstances are different. (Gail is younger, shorter and curvier than I. Also, I’m an engineer, so I usually go for plain — except if I’m going out on the town. )

    Even is the two of us have absolutely the most impeccable taste in the world, we would pick different projects because we are entirely different people. Different things look good on us and we attend different functions.

    And, alas, we will attend different functions tonight! Jim’s family is coming to dinner to celebrate the Sox win, and I couldn’t quite put this one off. They all grew up in the West ‘burbs and have been waiting for this for a LONG TIME.

  5. Dee Says:
    October 29th, 2005 at 5:47 pm

    I don’t always like all the designs in each magazine. I thought the fall issue of Cast On was nice but the current issue is not. Vogue did a pretty good job with it’s current issue.

    Knitting patterns in magazines are like ice cream, sometimes even 31 flavors isn’t enough :)

  6. Dianna Says:
    October 30th, 2005 at 9:53 am

    Interesting ideas. I don’t have an opinion about the issue, but I did think Vogue Knitting’s choices this month, were entertaining to the say the least. I loved that long coat of many colors, but if I wore it, I would look like a semi - people would be afraid and jump out of my way. But I liked how it looked on the model.

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