The best knitting book...

I found this at Barnes and Noble today. It is fabulous!!

I believe I will buy it. I read through pretty much the whole thing. I at least read about every question. I did not read all the answers, but it will make an excellent reference for ANYONE who may have a question. I think the first 20 pages were on casting on. There the ways I knew and a few I had never seen before. There is a bunch of info on fixing problems. Lots of pictures. GOOD STUFF! I have up to this point used my stitch and bitch for most referencing and the internet. This book is good because it is small, think fitting in your knitting bag and doesn't contain any patterns so there is no wasted space.

WAIT... what am I saying... wasted space by patterns. Okay, not really wasted space, but a good book to have.

While I am praising this book I feel I should complain about a book which upset me a few weeks ago. I was on one of my regular excursions to B&N and came across The Yarn Girl's Guide to Beyond the Basics. And my complaint is that a book claiming to be beyond the basics should have no to very little basic stuff in it. And while the patterns were nice enough, I believe there was 40 (maybe less, I have not looked in it for awhile) pages of instructions. All the instructions you probably need to make every pattern in the book. I like have the basics, but I don't really need them in every book. Especially one that is kind of a follow up to a book that claims to cover all the basics. Kind of the way the two S&B books are. The first is full of good beginner stuff and the second sums that stuff up in 4 pages and has a slew of new info, stuff on redesigning patterns and how sweaters (and patterns) are constructed. GREAT! But I got so mad going through the beyond the basics book. I know I am ranting. But as an x book seller and as a current book buyer, I like to feel like my money was well spent and if I could have got an extra 5 patterns in those 40 pages that is what I want.

As you can tell, I am grumpy. Both Kyle and I are grumpy. He because he had a tooth implant done yesterday. Me because I am regularly grumpy for no real reason. I need to go get in bed, get warm and veg out!

So here are some cute pictures of Trout from this morning. She was in the window trying to get a look outside. Kyle and I think she needs to go outside and play more... she is getting fat. We are just worried about her running away some more. She keeps going back to our old apartment (a block away) and hiding under the house for weeks at a time. The first time she did it we thought she was gone for good. We were out for a walk, she had been gone a little over a week. We decided to walk by the old place and heard a familiar meow. I had to pull her out from under the house and she yowelled the whole way home. I felt like a kid(cat)napper. That happened one or two more times and she has been kept indoors every since. Only to gain like 5-8 pounds. Sorry I said I had pictures...
She looks pretty good here. She is not so bad when she is not attacking me or my stuff or waking me up in the morning or scratching me! I guess I like her!