Spring Knitty

I have a confession to make: I have not been a knitter very long. I have attempted to be a knitter many times, each time failing. The first was in my childhood when I was giving a "my first knitting kit". Needless to say, the kit in its entirety was given to me with the rest of the yarn that was laying around my parent's home. One summer I begged my boyfriend at the time who was a knitter and my mother to teach me. I didn't get far on that attempt. What finally turned me into a knitter was a ride across country where in Blue Earth, Minnesota, I decided to teach myself to knit. I did take a brief vacation from it for a few months but learning that time has seem to stuck with me.
So Spring Knitty 2007 is the first new issue that I am seeing. I waited for days for the new one, wondering how many patterns from it I would like to knit. And now I have discovered the answer: two.
I am in a sweater kick right now. Sweaters and cartigans are calling to me to knit them. As previously mentioned I have a list of 3 sweaters to knit up and I feel like that list will only grow. for that reason I really enjoy this pattern but not with the collar pinned together. Where will it fall on the list? I am not sure yet.
I also really love these. There is one small problem with them: they are socks. I have not knit socks yet, let alone cables and I am trying to advoid the call of socks for a little bit. Sweaters are a different story but socks... they can wait until I am really ready.
Other then those two patterns, there isn't a whole lot in there that even looks interesting to me. There is a lot of kids clothes and frankly, I don't have kids right now and I don't love any random children enough to knit for them. Baby blankets, yes, clothing, no. Finally the other sweaters look kinda.... oldish. I want knit shirts and sweaters that look young and fun. Something that I can't find in the store (since I can never find sweaters in the store that I like.) and something that will look good on me. Vests will always be out (at least for now) and a boring t-shirt? Not something calling my name.
Maybe I am just cranky today. I was about to write a post this morning showing my true feminist colors in response to a news story on the Today show about girls being suspended from school for saying the word "Vagina" while other kids were allowed to say the word "fuck". I have for the time being, taken a deep breath and contained my inner feminist, at least for now. Who knows if she will break out later and go on a rant about the messages we are sending our children?
I feel like knitting lately has made me look at knitting sterotypes a lot. My "sister" commented that only single girls knit, and there is the discussion on the knitty board about the sterotype of grandmothers knitting that lead to the creation of a new Blog Ring. I think a lot about Madam Defarge knitting away in "A Tale of Two Cities". She wasn't demure or mellow... just biding her time and watching, knitting the names into her project and waiting for the tides to turn. She was a knitter who wasn't afraid to use her needles to poke someone. This goes along with the subtitle of JenLa's blog: "Ponchos don't kill people, people who knit ponchos kill people" Knitters may only look all calm on the outside, inside we are feminists and crazy women (and men) biding our time and making wonderful sweaters in the process.