A Stash of One's Own

If one thing is pretty much universal about knitting nerds it's 'The Stash'.  We joke about it, sometimes feel guilty about it, sometimes revel in it... in short, most of us can't pass up a sale, charity resale shop, going out of business sale (*sigh*), or any other place which has the potential for stash enrichment without at least having a look.  There are, apparently, knitters who have one project going at a time and who buy supplies for that project and only that project, knit on it until it's finished and then move on... those people are outliers... they are not in the statistical norm. 

We knitters even have acronyms built up from our shared experience... LYS (Local Yarn Shop), SABLE (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy), WIP (Work In Progress), UFO (UnFinished Object) and a million others. 

This book is a collection of essays and musings by some of the best known knitters and designers, authors and fibre-philosophers.  A casual look at Ravelry or Craftsy will contain page after page of patterns or mentions of the contributors to this book. The book contains an introduction (worth reading!), 23 essays (ditto) and closes with an 'about the authors' section that is well worth taking notes from to inspire follow up reading.

The voices in this volume are varied, as in all such compilations.  You'll find whimsy and serious reflection.  I tried to read this collection as a box of chocolates, one at a time, savoring the individual nuances.. but honestly read it like I generally eat a box of chocolates, having 'just one more' until the box is empty.

Lovely book, and not just for us knitting fanatics.  I think it's a good window into our stashing mindset and justifications... so if you're close to a knitter, this could explain a lot. 

Four stars
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.