I should tidy more often...

The things I find when I start tidying up! In order to find room to store Christmas gifts, I had to clean out some stuff in our "home office". I use the term lightly because, although we have two (sometimes three) computers in there, and all kinds of files, it really is more of a dumping ground. Hubby has grand plans of a home office, but until he learns that papers wont file themselves by osmosis, and you actually have to open the file cabinet to put them awa instead of piling them on top, well, things won't change much. I am not absolved of any of the blame either. I have patterns, yarn, magazines, wool, books, yarn, UFO's, wool, plans, and even some wool piled up in there. WIlly-nilly is the term most often associated with my piling method. Yesterday, I went looking for something. To be honest, I'm not sure what, as I got sidetracked when I came across a stash of books I hadn't seen in a while. Now, I have a lot of craft books. A lot. And a lot of them are knitting books, mostly purchased quite recently, but these three have been around for quite awhile. Even though I learned to knit as a kid, and knit on and off for since then, I really didn't become as obsessed with it like I am now until a couple of years ago. So these books predated the obsession period.

The Modern Lace book makes me laugh - how modern is it to decorate your house like this?

Do people even have settees anymore? Now, don't jump on me about this - I love antiques, grew up with them around and have many in my house. But I draw the line at antimaccassars, since the men in my life don't use maccassar or any other hair oil. I guess I like my antiques hard - i.e. wood pieces and such. I like my upholstered pieces a little softer and less rigid.
I do see a use for many of the pieces in this book, however:

This azalea doily would translate beautifully to a small scarf - just big enough to cover the neck and tuck into a coat collar...
There are many lovely lace pieces in this book - the square pieces of the luncheon set - (My MIL would LOVE this - she actually has luncheons when her bridge club comes, but I'm not knitting a dozen lace placemats...). I'm glad I unearthed it.

Next is a book that Lucky would be all over, I'm sure.
(Okay, Blogger is not being cooperative - there should be a picture of The Swedish Mitten book here)
It's not for the faint of heart (i.e., if you MUST follow a pattern word for word, line by line, don't use this book.) There is a VERY basic mitten pattern given at the beginning of the book with sizes for womena nd children. But each of the patterns is simply a picture of the finished mitten and the chart (and the charts are drawn by hand). You have to figure out how to apply the chart to the pattern in your size. Plus there are tons of cuff options - again, you have to put it together yourself. But, if you are comfortable with this, there are some really pretty patterns - florals, geometrics, all kinds of stuff.
(Okay, I've fooled Blogger! here's the book)

And a sampling of the inside:


The Homespun Handknit book is also a good one for small projects. The patterns use the designer's handspun wool (ergo, the title), but most of them are of standard grists, so you can substitute a worsted, DK or fingering to suit. No pictures of this - camera battery died at this point last night.

I really should organize better - certainly my patterns and books and such. The stash is pretty fluid, and moves around alot, but I do have plans eventually. I'd like to replace the shelving wehave in the "office" at the moment - I want bookcases, and some CD towers, which I have discovered are the perfect size of balls of yarn. and not too deep that I would lose things... The plans are made - it the actual execution of said plans that keep stalling. One of these days...