The Perfect Waiting Room Book, and a Few More

At my age I spend a lot of time in waiting rooms, accompanying someone who is having radiation/knee surgery/CAT scan etc. I keep a Hospital Tote Bag ready to go, and it contains:

  • a very old Snuggie type wearable blanket because it’s always freezing in there
  • ear buds to block out other people’s noise
  • a change purse for the vending machine
  • eye drops, lip balm, breath mints, etc.
  • a list of medications for each person I may be accompanying

And of course some books. I prefer physical books normally, but there are ones I keep on my Kindle, so they are always ready to go with me.

It’s hard to find the sweet spot of reading material.  There are so many interruptions, and I am already stressed enough being at the hospital, that I won’t have the attention span to follow plot twists in fiction, or to absorb new information from serious nonfiction.  It can’t be a book that makes me want to get up and immediately start a new project, craft- or research-wise. What I need is something with short sections, on a topic I’m already familiar with.

For me the perfect book is A Stash of One’s Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting Go of Yarn, an anthology edited by Clara Parkes.

Reading this book is like being surrounded by a group of undemanding friends, and listening as they relate their experiences with their craft — what initially sparked their interest, memories of their mentors and mentees, what they do when it is time to pass on some of their inventory. Absorbing their different accounts takes me away from the hospital waiting room and into a lovely cozy yarn shop.

an assortment of yarn

The 23 contributors wrote from many different perspectives — sheep farmer, spinner, knitting designer, yarn reviewer, daughter of a famous knitter. Some of them have huge stashes requiring whole rooms, some just have a basket or two of yarn.

I’m not a knitter but it was easy to substitute the word “fabric” for every time this book mentioned “yarn”. 🙂

From Franklin Habit‘s chapter, Her Pretty String:

As my passion for knitting grew, I stashed yarns the way a nouveauriche billionaire collects art: rapidly, and with more enthusiasm than taste.  I bought stout American wools from small American mills.  I bought rich, exuberant colors from the emerging community of hand-dyers.  I bought fine silk blend and dreamy imported alpaca.  I also bought “rustic” farmers’ market wools so rough they wore a hole in the bottom of my shopping bag and cheap, gaudy Chinese acrylics that squeaked across my needles like angry mice.  It was all yarn to me, and I wanted all the yarn.

From Jillian Moreno‘s chapter, Spinning Stash:

I am unapologetic about the size of my stash.  It keeps me grounded.  In it I see possibility and the comfort of abundance.  It is a reflection of me on a deep level.  It’s also filled with connections.  Not just the stories of what happened and who I was with when I bought a particular braid of fiber, but also the stories of the fiber and where it came from.  The closer you get to the source, the closer you get to the people.

… A big stash allows me to have a fluid sense of creativity — a looseness that is very much like playing.  It opens me up, unlocks things.  The creative bit takes all the other pieces — the possibility, the abundance, the connections, and the actual work of making yarn — bundles them, and explodes like a glitter bomb.  It gets everywhere, it makes me smile, and I can’t escape it.

I have reread this book several times.  I always find it comforting.

And in case the waiting time really stretches out, I would also recommend these books for back-up:

  • Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World, also by Clara Parkes.  I wrote a short review here.
  • Costume Design by Deborah Nadoolman Landis.  I own three wonderful books by this author — the other two are gigantic coffee table books, but I have this one in Kindle format so I can always carry a costume book with me! The only drawback to this book is that I want to immediately sit and watch all the films each designer worked on. 
  • and Vanishing Fleece, also by Clara Parkes.  The author bought an entire year’s wool clip from a small sheep farm, and then followed the wool through all the steps of being processed, in various small businesses across the country.   I am in awe of her ability to describe complicated equipment in a way that makes it more understandable than diagrams would. I have the audio book version, and Clara’s voice is easy to listen to. 

Of course all of these books are worth reading at any time!  I just save them for those situations when other books won’t do, and it is a comfort to me to know I am prepared.  🙂

Category : Book Reviews, Books
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