Eagerly awaiting autumn.

(Florence Silk Mittens from NYPL Digital Gallery)
Although it might not seem like it considering recent temperatures here in New York, autumn will be here soon enough. With the season’s arrival my thoughts turn to warm knitted goods, and this weekend I got a start on what I suppose you could call fingerless mittens, or perhaps wrist warmers, knitted with a fuzzy mohair blend. I’m trying a new stitch that I learned in Vogue Knitting–it’s called the purse stitch, and it’s very easy and works up quickly because it is lacy and open. Here’s the basic stitch (found on p. 145, in the book’s oh-so-helpful Stitch Dictionary):
Work in multiples of 2 stitches plus 2 extras.
Row One: Knit 1, * yarn over, purl 2 together, repeat from *, end with Knit 1.
All rows follow the same pattern as Row One.
If you are new to knitting and want a primer in order to understand knitting instructions, you can’t turn to a better source than Vogue Knitting, with its great illustrated explanations, stitch dictionary, and patterns both simple and complex. You’ll find plenty of other contemporary knitting guides to check out at the NYPL Branch Libraries, too (just search for the subject keyword “Knitting”). At NYPL Research Libraries, you can examine over one hundred knitting guides published over the last two hundred years. And finally, two online resources that I especially recommend are: Knitty and The Daily Knitter.