:: May 2003 
Feature
Summer Reading for the Fibreworker
It's that time again! Time to set your needles, shuttles, embroidery hoops, quilting frames, hooks, and sewing equipment aside for several hours of restful reading in the fibre world. So much of a fibreworker's time is devoted to reading, adapting, and designing patterns for fibre projects that occasional time must be set aside for the pleasure of reading about fibre rather than for the purpose of creating with fibre. This set-aside time is known as summertime.
Warm weather and vacation trips work together to make summer the most natural season for this activity. It is often easier to read about fibrework on hot days than to perform it. While many of us fibreworkers pack small fibre projects when we travel, few of us would subject a fine canvas or fibres to wind and sand on the beach. If traveling by air, we must now pack these projects in checked luggage, since increased security means that needles and scissors cannot be used in the passenger cabin.
Reading about fibrework can be a restful, inspiring, comforting, poignant, or amusing experience. The book in the photo, Knit Lit: Sweaters and Their Stories, and Other Writing about Knitting, edited by Linda Roghaar and Molly Wolf contains essays reflecting all of these moods. The stories are grouped by themes, making it easy for the reader to skip around and read them in the order of personal choice.
For fibre mysteries, see Review. For a collection of quilting stories, see Advice.