Magazines: Old School vs. Digital.

I miss Borders.

We in the yarnyMarni household used to go there on a weekly basis, to browse the stacks, to sit and read books to our daughter, to drink coffee and eat chocolate chip cookies as big as our heads, and to buy magazines.

Oh, how we love our magazines in this house.  My husband’s tastes run from The Economist to Mojo to Four Four Two.  My daughter enjoys the kid version of National Geographic and is starting to get into American Girl Magazine.  And me?  Well… isn’t it obvious?  😉

So now there’s no more Borders (yes, we have a Barnes & Noble, but it’s not as close.  And it’s not as comfortable and familiar and friendly and… well, “Borders-y”.), and therefore, not quite as many magazines are making it into the house.  My husband found a way around this:  almost everything he reads now is delivered via iPad.  But I’m having a more difficult transition.  While I like the slickness of iPads and Kindles and e-readers, I can’t seem to let go of the old-school concept of holding a book or magazine in my hands, turning actual pages, marking my place with paper bookmarks, packing them into The Bag Your Bag Could Be Like to share with others.

That’s not to say that I’m not trying to go digital – I downloaded Interweave Knits (via Zinio), Knitscene, and Knit.Wear (via my hard drive) so I can try to get comfortable with this e-reading concept, but I’m not sure if it’s working.  I do like Zinio a lot – it’s easy to use and the pages really look gorgeous.  And I love how every link is live, so I can just !click! and another window opens to something interesting. The other magazines aren’t on Zinio, so I’m trying to adjust my PDF reader to make it more Zinio-esque.

 

The verdict?  It’s… okay.  Maybe it just takes some getting used to.  Maybe I just like holding a magazine in my lap more than my laptop.  Which do you prefer?

 

The Shawl Is Finished… What Next?

I’m late in reporting this, probably because I’ve been celebrating for a full week, but…

THE SHAWL IS FINISHED!!!

Completed on 03/27/10, it measures 83″ x 16″ after blocking. And I just love it. For my first lace project, I can’t help but feel a real sense of accomplishment.  I wore it to work on Thursday, and, predictably, nobody took notice of the long swath of cranberry  tossed carelessly around me.  But no matter.  I’ll be wearing it a lot.  My coworkers will notice eventually…

[remembering that I work with J2EE architects and Java developers…]

… no, they won’t.  The heck with ’em, I love it, I’ll wear it no matter who’s noticing.

Here’s the old picture.  I’ll update it the next time I wear it.

So, now that this project is done… what happens next?

• Socks, knit with Austermann Step.  I try to always have socks on the needles, because it’s by far the best travel project around.  I shove the yarn, 5″ sock needles, and tape measure into my little Goknit pouch, attach it to my purse, and I’m ready to knit anywhere.  And I do.  The socks will be for my husband, picture to follow.
• Cathy Carron’s Gathered Mesh Polo, from Interweave‘s Spring 2010 Knitscene mag.  I chose this project out of, like, 8 other finalists for my big Spring project because it’s utterly wearable 3 out of 4 seasons of the year, and presents a new challenge for me:  seamless sweater construction.  I just ordered the yarn – Blue Sky Alpaca‘s Skinny Cotton – in an interesting grayish/purple-y color they call Zinc (#304).  Should be starting this next Friday, and I absolutely can’t wait.  It’s the only thing preventing me from splurging on new shoes.  Oh wait, I did that, too…

Anyone else starting anything new for Spring?

Midwinter Inspiration.

Ughhhhhh… what a gray, rainy, cold, and generally icky day it is today.  You’d think it would be a great day to get some knitting done, which I did, but I gotta say, I’m getting bored with my current project.  It’s almost done – 2 more balls of yarn to go – but I’m really in the mood for something new.  Maybe for Spring.  And definitely for me.

I typically find a lot of inspiration on ravelry.  If you’re not, um… ravelling (?!), and you’re into fiber, get yourself over there immediately.  Check out the Bobby Award nominees – I laughed harder than I have in a long time reading through the Funniest Project Title/Tag/Notes category.

Interweave Knits Winter/Spring 2010 Knitscene magazine is excellent – just like every other Knitscene magazine they’ve published.  Will there ever be a time when I finish my WIPs exactly when a new issue comes out so I can immediately start one of their awesome projects?  I really have to plan better.

One more… I get a lot of yarn company’s newsletters in my inbox.  I read them, take a few mental notes, then hit the delete button.  The last email from S. Charles Collezione (from Tahki Stacy Charles) made me stop in my tracks.  Gorgeous!

Anyone else fiber-optically inspired these days?