Another sweater, Christmas, misc.

I keep forgetting that I have this journal. Well, I don't think anyone actually reads it anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter, but since my LJ is read by more than just knitters, I thought I'd put this post here.

After some struggle, I was able to finish the Marching Cables sweater from the Oct 2007 Knit 'n Style for my mother's boyfriend for Christmas. (See this post in the LJ Knitting community for more details and notes. I don't really feel like typing it all in again.) As you can see from the picture, it fits him pretty well, and he seemed to like it. He's a hard guy to buy for, so I figured I'd make him something this year instead.

My best Christmas present this year was the KnitPicks Options needle set. I already have the Boye Needlemaster and the Denise sets, but you can never have too many needles, right? I love the smoothness of these, and I like the thinner cords and the fact that there's no bend in the place where the cord screws onto the needle (well, mostly; that bend in the Boye ones allows me to tighten the needle onto the cord without the little key thing, which is impossible with the KP ones...luckily I have at least 4 or 5 of those keys!). I will probably use the Boyes as spares or when I need to string more than one cord together (something the Options can't do), and the Denises when I travel by air, just to be safe. (Knitting needles are supposed to be among the allowed items on flights, but there's also that little disclaimer that TSA has the right to do whatever the hell they want, so I'd rather not risk it.)

I just did something totally nuts. I really want to tackle the last knitting technique I'm interested in that I haven't tried yet: Fair Isle. I took a class in it at Stitches East but still haven't attempted an actual project (mostly because steeks scare the heck out of me...so I think my first project will be a raglan). Anyway, I know that Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting is one of the definitive works on the subject, but what I didn't know until I started Googling for it tonight was that not only is it out of print, but the few copies floating around are hideously expensive. So I just bought a copy on eBay for an embarrassing price (well over $100). Oh well, my birthday's in a few days, so I'll chalk it up to early birthday present. I just hope the book is worth the price.

And I just have to take a second for a mini-rant about copyright law. This is a great illustration of why US copyright law sucks so much: even an out-of-print book, which is not making any money for its author, cannot be legally reproduced, and therefore old copies are selling at a totally outrageous price. If I weren't worried about getting caught, I'd see if any friends would be willing to chip in a few bucks towards the price in exchange for me giving them a complete copy. I mean, I'd feel some ethical qualms about doing that if the author were actually losing anything from this sort of activity, but as it is? Only the fear of legal and financial penalties keeps me from doing it. If copyright law were sane, a work would revert to the public domain after a certain period (maybe 2-5 years?) of being out-of-print, unless it were specifically renewed by the author. But no, corporate interests are responsible for writing the laws, so the rest of us get screwed. Yes, I'm bitter.