Yokes

I know I said I was going to post a new finished project later in the week, but look what arrived at the Treehouse just before Saint Nick’s to distract me!

I think many of you know how much I anticipated this book, and judging from the many voices in the Kate Davies Ravelry forum, I was not the only one. Yoke sweaters have been my favourite thing to make and wear ever since I started knitting, so when I heard Kate was goign to publish a book solely on Yokes I could hardly contain my enthusiasm. The book was absolutely worth all the anticipation. It is a bit more substantial than Colours of Shetland. The book contains essays on different aspects and perspectives on yokes. There are eleven designs included in the book, all yoke sweaters.
You can view the designs here if you haven’t already.

The essays included are:
1.Why Yokes?
2. Greenlanders and Norwegians
3. Kerstin Olsson and the Bohus Yoke
4. The Shetland Tree and Star
5. Perspectives on the Lopapeysa
6. A conversation with Meg Swansen (On the legacy of Zimmermann)
7. Yoke Connections

The publication of the book was delayed for a week or so due to problems at the printer. Because of this, Kate had emailed everyone a unique code to download the e-book on Ravelry. Initially these codes would accompany our book as a sticker, but they were send earlier because of the delay. Kate and her team really went out of their way to make the delay as unnoticeable as possible.I think the team did brilliant. I downloaded the book to print one of the patterns that I wanted to cast on right away, but saved the rest for when my copy arrived in the mailbox. As far as books go, I much prefer paper as opposed to ebooks and kindles.

The book was signed, which was a lovely surprise. According to my boyfriend, Saint Nick can arrange a great many of things and I should ask no further questions.

As expected, I love all of the designs and most of them I’d want to make at some point. Unsurprisingly the colourwork designs rank among my favourites. There are three design using lopi wool and three designs using Shetland wool, which are at the moment my favourite yarns to work with so I think I’m all set. My favourite designs at the moment are: Ásta Sóllilja, Buchanan, Foxglove, Cockatoo Brae and Epistrophy.

 I’m currently working on Foxglove. Progress, however, is slow as I’ve had little time to knit these past few weeks. I’ve worked a lot on university stuff and…this week I had a deadline for a rather important research proposal *gulp*. December and January is always crazy busy with lots of university work planned around the holidays. So I’m planning to reward myself by reading the essays in yokes tonight so I have them done before the real craziness starts next week.