by JULIET WATERS

Reading books these days is hard. It was especially hard a few weeks ago when no book could distract me from the lure of CNN or the compulsion to drop all activities every 20 minutes to surf the Net for late breaking news stories. Looking for something to keep my hands busy while I became a numb, mindless war junkie, I picked up a review copy that had been hanging around my house for a few months, Knitting Pretty: Simple Instructions for 30 Fabulous Projects.

My relationship with knitting has never been pretty. I learned to knit from Nana, a steely willed elderly woman who used to babysit me every morning. While I played, she smoked a pack of Craven As and knit slippers or toilet-paper cozies from an acrylic wool - so indestructible, I have no doubt Nana's fierce knitting will survive our civilization. This was a woman who had knit her way through two world wars. Occasionally I would visit her apartment on Walkley, in the roughest, poorest stretch of NDG. There I learned that if you were reduced to subsistence living you could knit just about anything except large kitchen appliances.

Years went by and I forgot much of what she'd taught me. Every once in a while I would feel the urge to relearn my skills. I would buy some book full of patterns for flowery, weird sweaters that you could probably buy at Reitman's for $20. Convinced I could adapt them to something cooler I would inevitably abandon the project after making some huge frustrating mistake. Every time I move, I throw away a half-completed knitting project.

But things have changed in the last week. Less addicted to the war, I'm able to resist Net surfing for hours at a time. And as I sit here I am wearing a funky knitted kerchief in the colors of late winter and tragic bloodshed, a pair of garish purple Phentex slippers, and a bottle of Boréal with a matching beer cozy.

This is what war does to people.

Admittedly, turning people into knitting junkies is not the worst thing war does to people. But I'm not sure my reparative fantasy of total self-sufficiency is entirely healthy. In the last week I have convinced myself I will never buy anything except jeans, T-shirts and wool. I will knit my own dishcloths, curtains, and rugs. No sweatshop worker will ever labour for my benefit. In a world that seems to have become increasingly out of control, my family at least will be comfy.

I will accomplish this thanks to Knitting Pretty. Written by Kris Percival, a "reformed publicist" from Brooklyn, this is specifically geared to the hipster knitter. The introductory chapters are simply written and clearly illustrated. But more importantly the projects are mostly things you might actually want to wear (with the possible exception of the Fleetwood Mac shawl.)

True, the beer cozy is perhaps not the most practical invention in a country that prefers its beer cold. But it looks cool, it makes a great gift and only the most hardened party beer burglars will steal a beer disguised to look like it was brought by someone's granny. The beer cozy is also a way to take on the challenge of knitting in the round, which once you get the knack, isn't all that challenging.

Spring may not seem like the best time to take up knitting, but you'd be surprised by the number of summer projects you can work on. There's a great halter top, the hipster kerchief, the love and peace shoulder bag, and the cell phone cozy. There's also section on where to find cool patterns in magazines and on the Internet.

What I like best about knitting is that it's a great excuse to think things through. By the time fall rolls around I'm hoping I'll have the expertise and perseverance to take on more challenging projects like sweaters. Then again, I could very well become sick of knitting, and find myself going to back to frustrating, impossible projects like world peace.

Knitting Pretty by Kris Percival,
Chronicle books, pb, 120pp, $32.95