Ripping yarn yarns

Fiction, like everything else in life, is subject to fads and commissioning editors are rarely slow in picking up on and exploiting trends. Book clubs, cooking, conspiracy theory thrillers and paranormal romance have all recently been done to death but, ta-da, as luck should have it knitting has been experiencing a bit of a renaissance.

Ditching its nana-ish image and becoming the super, trendy craft de jour, “stitch ‘n’ bitch” clubs have sprung up across the globe and famous knitters such as Uma Thurman, Lily Cole, Tracey Ullman and Sarah Jessica Parker have added their celebrity cachet to knitting’s hot, new profile.

Authors have reached for their knitting pins and knitted up some fiction with a crafty twist: often with a diverse range of characters these titles bring focus to the value of female friendship and the many and varied pleasures to be found in the creative process. Yes indeedy, nothing beats the satisfation of a well executed gusset stitch, and even if you are too busy/cack handed/lazy to indulge in any real craft activity you can live vicariously and get all those good homeskill vibes from your fiction.

This month we’re celebrating all things practical at the library and we’ve selected some fiction titles on a knitting or quilting theme. But don’t worry if you aren’t a big fiction reader, the library is also chock-a-block with knitting memoirs, knitting magazines, patterns and inspirations as well as many, many other practical craft titles.

• Divas don’t knit by Gil McNeil
• The Friday night knitting club, Knit two and Knit the season by Kate Jacobs
• Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber
• Knitting mysteries by Maggie Sefton (Large Print only)
• Chicks with sticks by Elizabeth Lenhard
• The knitting circle by Ann Hood
• Knitting by Anne Bartlett
• Elm Creek quilts series by Jennifer Chiaverini
• Alice’s tulips by Sandra Dallas