I’ve been filching from my stocking (aka Abe Books) and thought I’d share what’s arriving in the mail.

(Hey, for two childless adults with Consuming Interests, the postman is the Big Star in December.  Santa who?)

My own copy of the ever-authoritative and argued-with Richard Rutt’s A History of Hand Knitting.  It’s hard to criticize an authoritative book you don’t own.  A detailed review will follow in a separate post.

(This is a smaller book than you’d think.)

And also, The Guide to Basket Weaving: Creative Weaving with Coconut Palms.

I’ve read through this one, and I’m not sure about it.  I wanted it, because although I don’t have any coconut palm trees in my yard, I have several (<10) cabbage palms, and I want a date palm.  (I don’t think coconut palms will grow here – but I’ll check.  Daan spent a good deal of his childhood in Hawaii, and I’m sure he’d like that. UPDATE: Unfortunately, no.  The occasional winter freezes we have here would kill the tree.)

When we trim the palm trees up, about once a year, we have stacks of palm fronds.  The City takes them away – but I look at these sturdy, fibrous fronds, and think, "there’s got to be a decent use for those.  I need skills."  So I sent off for this book, that came all the way from Hawaii.

The projects in it are what you see on the front.  I’m not sure about how wonderful or useful they are yet.  (No palm frond baseball caps or ‘wall hangers’ (???) for me, please – I have in mind decomposable plant pots.)  I will report again when I’ve tried my hand at palm frond weaving.