Book Rant

I'm totally not into knitting right now- oh, don't get me wrong- I'm still into yarn and I even still want to knit, but it's more like I can't decide what to knit. It's a little insane.

Anyway, today I'm going to blog about something I dislike in books and magazines; POORLY FINISHED SAMPLES. Seriously. I think if you are going to publish something in a knitting book or magazine you NEED NEED NEED to properly finish it. I should not be seeing wavy zippers, ugly seems, or ANYTHING that hasn't been blocked and neatly put together. If you are making something for a publication and you don't know how to finish it properly, for god sakes take it to someone who does and get it finished RIGHT.

What brought this on? Well, two books: Big Girl Knits and More Big Girl Knits. Don't get me wrong- I adore the books. There are designs in there that I love (even if I happen to be on the high end of their size range and am still unable to make all the patterns out of hand), and a LOT of good information about fitting clothing for larger ladies.

But damnit, I just CANNOT condone the poor finishing on some of the items in these books. It seriously drives me batty to see it. No, I'm not going to point fingers at particular members of the author team but let's just say I've seen poor finishing sneak by somewhere else, too. You may be saying that the finishing does not take away from the fabulousness of the finished item but, well, yes it does. And in a book that I'm paying money for it's just disgusting; If I want to see what it looks like with flaws and mistakes and crappy finishing I can log onto ravelry and see what people there have made (Thank god for Rav). In a book, magazine, whathaveyou- especially one that's published by reputable sources- I expect to see FLAWLESS finishing.

/rant