Sunday, June 07, 2009
Knitting in Many Languages
The new Filati Handknitting magazine for summer is out and the fact that it is in German doesn't stop me from buying it.
In fact, my knitting book collection contains books in many languages: French, German, Japanese, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Estonian, and, of course, Latvian.
This issue has too many beautiful patterns to overlook, language barrier or not. Lovely uses of lace stitches:
And unique, unusual stitchwork, too:
I enjoy getting as many international books and magazines on knitting that I can find. I always find it interesting to be exposed to different aesthetics and cultural influences. The European ones, especially, seem to resonate with me.
The fact that these may be in languages that I don't understand and, in the case of Japanese, can't even read, doesn't bother me. Many of them now use charts and schematics so that I don't actually need the written instructions as much.
And there are tools to help as well. An indispensable guide to the translation of knitting terms is Margaret Heathman's Knitting Languages.
And, of course, the Internet has a number of knitting translation sites, like the Wise Needle.
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