One thing I love about being on the internet is that I can learn new techniques without having to try and interpret from a book. If I only had the books my mother owns, or through access in the library, it’d be much much more difficult and slower to actually learn new approaches to things. I was doing a shawl with k2tog and ssk mirrors, and was just having so much trouble getting the ssk going smoothly, so what do I do? Hop on the net to see if there are any alternatives to the stitch. Not only are there ones that are identical (slip, knit, pass slipped stitch over), there are improvements (SYTK as above, or even the ‘Hungry Stitch’ which I found far too complicated to work into the pattern), and step by step pictures, and Youtube videos. Instead of having to wait to get access to books, it’s all there for the learning.