What is it with knitted food?

So yesterday the Viking and I took a little time to browse at the local super-sized bookstore. He of course went straight for military history and gaming; I of course went straight for knitting and gardening.

I did not buy anything, partly because I'm trying to work from what I have for a bit and partly because I didn't actually see anything I really wanted to buy.

I did get a chance to browse through Leigh Radford's One Skein, which has some very cute things in it and which I might spring for eventually, but there was nothing in it I felt the burning urge to knit right now so, I passed.

I was amused and baffled by the knitted cupcakes. What is it with knitted food? What purpose does it serve for the people who make these things? Purely decorative? The challenge of knitting a cupcake or a pear or a California roll? As toys? Are knitted cupcakes like the bowl of alabaster fruit my grandmother had on a table on her front hall for so many years, only harder to dust?

Perhaps it's that things that amuse and baffle need to be, just on their own terms.

The other book I looked hard at was Nora Gaughan's Knitting Nature which has had a lot of buzz lately and which is, i' truth, a beautiful book full of fascinating patterns done in ways you hadn't thought of, most of which I can't imagine wearing or using myself.

There were maybe two patterns in there I think I could wear. Not so much I think anyone I personally knit for could wear, either. When it comes to buying knitting magazines, I have a rule that I don't buy them unless there is at least one thing in there which I would really like to knit. For books, that scales up -- there had better be several things that make my eyes light up if I'm going to drop $20-$30 on a book of patterns.

The only thing in Knitting Nature which really lit up my eyes was a blouse worn by one of the models. The photo was supposed to be of a scarf, but no, it was the blouse that got me. Creamy off-white, deep v-neck, long sleeves, loose fitting, but shaped at the waist by a band of large honeycomb smocking. LARGE smocking -- the squares were probably 1" to a side; the whole band was about 4" wide. Fairly open smocking, too, so it shaped the blouse and provided texture without being fussy. Very lovely. I have quite a bit of soft creamy silk of about the right weight in the stash from Grandmaman (though I suspect this fabric was something my great-grandmother bought) which might be just right for such a blouse.

In other news, the waters are still rising. We here at ch�teau-sur-Magothie are still fairly dry, on a hill as we are, but downhill is less and less a desirable place to be. Astrid Fish, who normally rejoices in rain, is using the lilypads as an umbrella now.

verso - recto