Many of you know that I get complimentary copies of knitting-related books to review from the publishers.  Not all of them get reviewed.

Oh The Shame

When I first started QueerJoe, I had no difficulty harshly critiquing a design or a magazine or a book.

I’m not that blogger anymore.

First of all, I used to buy all my books, patterns and magazines back then. Second of all, I didn’t know that many designers.  I was pretty brutal.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t ever purposefully try to hurt someone.  But I also didn’t avoid it either.

So QueerJoe 5.0 has a dilemma.

What do you do with a free book that isn’t very good?

• Critique it honestly?
• Lie about it and recommend it?
• Send it back to the publisher with comments?
• Pretend you never received it and give it away to someone that might like it?
• Burn it?

Latest Version – QueerJoe

QueerJoe 1.0 would have just critiqued it honestly.  This book has no designs of any interest at all, except one nice scarf that only looks good on one side.  Conceptually, it looks appealing but doesn’t really follow through.  The cover price would be better spent on yarn.  Unfortunately, the photography is only a little better than mine on this blog.

QueerJoe 5.0 (soon to be 6.0) isn’t going to review the book.  I don’t know any of the designers or the author.  But I would still hate for any of them to find a harsh critique of their work on a google search pointing to my blog.  Having watched a lot of friends publish books, I know all that goes into the process.  It’s kind of like designing and knitting a sweater.  Sometimes it comes out EXACTLY as you had envisioned.  Other times not so much.

Suffice it to say, I won’t be recommending this book.  Nor trashing this book.  For those of you attending this year’s Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat in May, you might see it on the Tag Sale table, where it will garner a dollar or two for the scholarship fund.

I’d rather get an “Incomplete” on this assignment than complete it honestly and hurtfully.

Current Knitting

Three things I’m currently working on.  Tilt, Black & Blue Garter Scarf and Spinning.

First of all, I finished the body of the Tilt Cardigan!

Yes, as I completed the round with the final neck shaping, the sweater measured EXACTLY what it was supposed to.  I’ll have to do a bunch of calculations and figurings on the shoulder and top-of-neck shaping, but the majority of work is finished and it’s lovely.  It will also require that I decide on how I want to do the sleeves.

I made quite a bit of progress on the Black & Blue Scarf.

Hard to tell, but it’s probably about 3/5ths finished.  I will just persistently keep adding to this beauty until it’s finished.

Finally, I decided I had two bobbins filled with enough singles to start to ply.

Poor President Lincoln has had a lot of fiber spread over his face over the years to show approximate weight of spun yarn.  Mine looks to be fingering weight.  I think.