It’s becomming very clear that, while ordering a magazine through a newsagent does seem to circumvent the Subscriber Curse, the Magazine Ordering Curse rises to fill the curse vacancy.

On Tuesday I happened across a newsagent I haven’t been to before while picking up a chocolate fountain for myself. I was very pleased to finally find the last issue of Vogue, but a new issue of Interweave Crochet.

Yesterday I popped into my local newsagent to buy and post a card, and the lovely staff there told me my magazine was in. I’d seen Interweave Knits appearing on a few Aussie blogs, but last time it took four to six weeks more before it arrived in my newsagent, so I was surprised. The young woman produced Interweave Crochet with a flourish.

“Er, that’s not the right magazine,” I told them, then went on to explain that crochet isn’t knitting.

What’s strange about this is that when they looked up the magazine code a week or so ago to check the order was still in their computer system, the only Interweave magazines in the catalogue were Interweave Knits and Interweave Beading.

(Telling this to the beau last night, he said. “It could have been worse. It could have been Interweave Macrame.” Then he chuckled. “Or Interweave Bondage.” “Why Bondage?” I asked foolishly. “All those different knots you might want to learn,” he replied.)

Anyway, yesterday I popped into Spotlight Bayswater to continue my hunt for the yarn to finish the Sideways Spencer. The yarn section has moved back to it’s former position, and suddenly they have a good range of Cleckheaton and Patons yarns again. Well, except for Patonyle. I found the yarn I needed, then I spied this in the baby wool section:

It’s machine washable baby yarn, but it’s 70% wool and 30% nylon, which makes it Clayton’s sock yarn – the sock yarn you have when you’re not having sock yarn. It’s very soft, so I’m wondering how well it’ll wear, and comes in white, this coffee colour, light blue, light green, pink and violet.

Somehow it ended up in my possession. Later, wondering why I’d lost all yarn buying resistance, I realised I had stumbled upon a motive for buying yarn that I’d not yet succumbed to and so hadn’t gained any resistance against: Buying Yarn To Encourage or Reward a Yarn Maker.

As if me buying two balls is going to convince Cleckheaton to keep making this yarn. Riiight.

I might have come to my senses and put the yarn back before reaching the checkout, but at the crucial moment I was distracted. Turning a corner, I stumbled upon the pattern and book section. Instead of the usual pamphlets and “hip” teen knitting how-to books, there was a spread of really decent knitting books. Books like Knitting on the Edge and its siblings, Illusion Knitting, and the Harmony stitch guides. Decent books in Spotlight? What is the world coming to?

So this came home with me:

It helped that I had a $10 voucher to use if I spent $50.