Creative knitting - Kreativ strik

Yes, I finished an item - a bulky newsboy cap - and it is alright and the fall season's first finished hat, so worthwhile to show and mention. However, the camera is unfindable. I even have bought a tripod for it so I can take better pictures but it stays away from my eyesight. So this entry will consist of a review of a new Danish magazine on knitting - as far as I know there are no other magazins in Denmark that exclusively deals with knitting, so that in itself is remarkable. There are magazins that deal with knitting and other stuff, and they appeal to me more or less depending on what type of textile performer they seem to count as their target. 'Ingelise' for example is not always quite up-to-date fashionwise, talks too much about items being 'practical' (praktisk) or even 'useful' (anvendelig), and bases its designs too much on the products (yarn, fabric) they want to sell, so you can entirely 'recreate'.

'Håndarbejdsbladet' has a subtitle called 'i tråd med tiden' (in thread with time - meaning utterly fashionable and so) which is for a large portion misleading in relation to the magazins' content. That, or I am loosing touch here myself.

Thirdly, there's 'Kreative kvinder' which I like despite its utterly sexually discriminating title, but a drawback here is that their clothing designs go up to 44 max , and I use a 46 (coming from 50, I add hastily, so I do know what I am talking about here). Furthermore, some of their decoration ideas are so straightforward I think that truly kreative women (and men) could have thought of them themselves (or even made up something better!).

So here I am, I bought the magazin 'Kreativ Strik' and until a few moments ago it was in its (environmentally uncorrect) plastic cover so I haven't seen anything else but the front page yet. So I will write this review as I turn the pages....

The front page says it is a new magazin for 'you who likes to knit' (Hey that's me). But I am puzzled because it says 'nr. 2' so I must have missed the first one? It announces sweaters but also accessories, which gives good hope!

First page - editorial - talking about the trendiness of knitting (whoah, never heard THAT one before) and basically it says something about the magazin containing a lot of different projects. Mmh. Informative...

After a page turn we have an overview of the different projects, none of which directly gives that WOW feeling that you sometimes have for truly creative designs (I seem to have that a lot with anything designed by Norah Gaughan). And so let's see what we are having:

Category cardigans and vests: Fair Isle, Bulky, Easy, Bolero type, with cables, wrapstyle, Aranstyle (Square, I would call this one), lacey, with a yoke, with a colar, more or less 'ladylike'- really there's nothing here that I would not be able to find a similar FREE pattern on ravelry for.

Category wraps, stola's and scarfs: There's a poncho (ugh) a triangular shawl, a shawl in some yarn with sequins, an aran style scarf, and another triangular scarf. There's one thing here that I do not like, but actually surpasses the other mediocracy, a circular wrap. Right. Seen several times on Ravelry. There may be more yet, but it blends in with the surroundings to much to be noticed.

Sweaters for him and her: I have a husband who will not wear knitted garments other than accessories. You can see this as sad, but actually, if the only kind of sweaters to be made for men are like the ones in this magasin it is a positive character-trait.
For the women: See under the category of cardigans. Ravelry already has it, and for free.

Hats: There's two kinds: A beret (I love berets but they are nowhere near being a novelty), in stockinette, that is. And a regular tube with stripes which you can actually make without having to deal with a pattern.

Bag: There's one bag. It is a Aranstyle rectangular piece of knitted cloth foldet over. It has a braided string. Duh.

A few pieces here are candidates for those sites that have titles like 'what not to wear'. There are, for example, two dresses in the magazin that I could not imagine anyone wanted to wear for hideousness.

Okay, let's mellow up a bit. I know people have different taste and I know I prefer accessories to garments and so on. But even then, the things I tell my students would go for the people that made this magazin as well: If you are going to present something as new and exciting, you'd better have read the literature on the subject. Literature in this context can be understood as: 'blogs, ravelry, international magazins, and even podcasts'. The magazine as it is seems totally out of touch with what goes on in the knitting community, nationally as well as globally. No mention of ravelry, knitting in public, stitch n bitch, anything internetrelated, LYSs, etc. Only patterns that can be found elsewhere for FREE. For look what they have next month on their preview page:
1. a cushion consisting of granny squares - a search on Ravelry gives 15 pages of projects, ranging from different types of granny squares to a great number of ways of putting them together. All free.
2. washsclothes - Ravelry here shows 26 pages of free patterns, including lacy-style ones as the preview shows
3. a crocheted doily - with a star center . Never seen it before.
4. crocheted stars for christmas ornaments.
5. felted slippers - babyslipper-style. Really, this is so remote, fashionwise, from Saartjes booties, the felted clogs or twinkletoes from knitty, the himalayan Dzonbas or the Mary Jane style Slippers which the net is clogged with, that it may make you cry.

Did I mention you can buy the yarn for all of their designs? Via the web? So someone must have heard of the internet?

Only advantage left: The language. If you are not skilled in english AND a Dane you would like a Danish magazin on knitting. However, if you are a seriously internet based knitter (and you are, or otherwise you wouldn't read my blog) you have, in the meantime, been drooling over pictures of designs that have patterns only written up in english. That's too bad, but really, I would rather spend some time and money having someone helping me out with the english than having to rely on a magazin like this. So much for the famous Danish Design.

Come on, disagree with me...