Two night ago I finished the back of Alex. I’d promised myself I would start a SES or CFA hat once the back was done. But then I cast on for the fronts. I’d decided to knit them simultaneously. Since I usually knit garments in the round as much as possible, it had been a long time since I’d had the opportunity. I ought to get the fronts started so if I needed to take some simple knitting with me (after all, I’m nearing the heel on the sock) I could. So I cast on. Then knit the first 14 rows, just to make sure I knew what I was doing.

And then I stopped making excuses and cast on for another SES hat. Which is what I worked on last night. And it occured to me that the ribbing was pretty simple knitting, and a hat is much more portable…

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It’s been magazine season lately. A new knitty, a new Twist Collective, another IK and IC preview.

(I almost wish I could resist looking at IK and IC previews. A few weeks back I found IC in a newsagent, but because it looked familiar I couldn’t remember if I’d already bought it, or just seen it online. I took the risk and bought it, and was relieved to find I didn’t already have it.)

None of these magazines inspired me. But that’s pretty normal for me with Spring Issues. It’s the Fall and Winter patterns I tend to like the most. So I was pretty chuffed when not just the latest Yarn magazine appeared, but a new Aussie mag. Bring on the southern hemisphere magazines!

Yarn didn’t seem to have many patterns this time, but the articles were numerous and generally good. The patterns were well photographed and set out. Though occasionally the design work is a little wonky (the way the alpaca article was set out was very confusing) but pretty good for a mag not produced by a big company and overall it has a nice look and feel that isn’t overly commercial. Still, I didn’t find anything in this issue to inspire me.

Australian Knitting, in comparison, had less articles (but good ones – I love the fashion report!) and a lot more patterns. Many of the projects aren’t photographed being worn, which is something that makes me mistrust a pattern – I want to know what it looks like on a person (and in the case of the hottie cover… how hard would it have been to find a hot water bottle to put it on?). The design is good – this is a company experienced in publishing craft magazines – but I found the placement of the credit for the maker of the pattern ambiguous – it could be simply where to buy the yarn. And it isn’t clear the aran jumper is a child’s pattern, which is annoying because I thought I’d found something I liked at last. I like the Kaleidoscope Vest, too, but not enough to put it in my queue.

I as amused to see, on the inside front of Yarn, there’s a full page ad announcing that Knit Picks is changing its name to Knit Pro. There’s no mention of this on their site as far as I can see. Is it a change only for Australia, like Vogue Knitting now publishing as ‘Designer Knitting’ here?

And if so, do they know that ‘pro’ was (and may still be) short for… let’s call it an ancient mainly female career choice… in some parts of Australia?