book review | Talitha Kuomi

fill in the blanks.

‘i really like ________’

‘i find lace knitting ________’

and ‘i approach knitting lace with a great amount of ________’.

my answers would be ‘buttons‘, ‘daunting‘, and ‘trepidation akin to fear‘,

but it’s a good guess

that heather zoppetti would be likely to say

‘lace‘, ‘exciting‘, and ‘enthusiasm‘.

i agreed to

review her new book,

‘everyday lace‘

with high hopes

that i might

learn something

and i did,

while also

unexpectedly gaining

a growing interest

in exploring

the fascinating realm of lace myself.

heather lays things out so clearly

that i found myself wondering ‘what am i so afraid of?’.

i mean why am i willing to rip out 12 rows to fix a cable,

but terrified of having to pull out 3 rows to a lifeline

for correcting a lace mistake?

i fear that my own misplaced paranoia is to blame.

picking a lace pattern is

my next step.

heather offers up

so many great options.

the strasburg

arm warmers are

just beautiful,

and i have

the perfect button for

the cristiana headband.

ah, back to buttons.

i love them. i have my grandmother’s old button tin

and can dig through it endlessly

which always makes me smile as i remember

these buttons which she eagerly sewed onto knit sweaters and handmade blouses.

some of the ‘everyday lace’ patterns require buttons.

official scavenger hunt question:

just how many of heather’s patterns in ‘everyday lace’ call for buttons?

and along those lines:

which pattern of mine has the most buttons?

(hint: it has more than 20…)

have you not yet heard about heather’s clever scavenger hunt

(which could win you yarny prizes)?

check out all the scheduled stops here.

the first questions were posted yesterday on amanda’s blog.

the third set will go up on stephannie’s blog on the 27th.

have fun hunting!

i’m off to find fabulous fingering weight yarn

to match this perfect button…

photos by joe hancock.

courtesy of h. zoppetti & interweave.

‘eager(ly)’ taken from 31:13 of the proverbs.

my 5 yr old son likes to ‘read’ to his little sister and he does a very nice job of it

getting the gist of the stories without actually reciting word for word,

but there are some books that he will carry to me, crestfallen,

saying, “mama, i can’t remember what this page is about”

with tears hanging at the corners of his dear eyes

that break my heart into sad little pieces.

this never happens to him with joanna and eric johnson‘s books.

in freddie’s blanket they have once again found the perfect balance

between her sweet, memorable story lines and his richly detailed drawings.

not only do they tell a good story,

but at my house

they also plant seeds that are

the beginnings

of beautiful

family

conversations.

while reading

freddie’s blanket,

it came to light that

i swaddled them

each in blankets,

though theirs

were “not

nearly as cool”, they informed me, nor as cleverly shaped as the ‘baby envelope’.

it also surfaced,

among other things,

that their uncle ken

was quite prone

as a young child

to sleep in odd spots,

just like freddie does

throughout the book.

as i was looking for my own copy

just this morning,

i found it in the hands

of my 4 yr old girl

as she sat quietly

‘reading’ to her baby brother.

after telling the story on page 2, she points and says,

“papa rocked me in a cradle when i was a baby like you”,

when she came to page 15,

“your hands have to be this (holding up her hand for size)

for mama to let you hold her guitar all by yourself”,

and “i think this beetle plays the trumpet just like our big sister” at page 25.

right near the very end, she leaned up close to him and said quite solemnly,

“when you are as old as me you will sleep in a big boy bed like freddie, too”.

then she ‘read’ through the patterns at the end of the book

with awe in her voice saying, “patteren. patteren…”

as she turned each page

and i thought to myself, this is

the kind of book we need more of.

want one of your own?

Talitha Kuomi

Patterns your yarn will beg to become

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a heathered hunt

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