Review: Sweater 101

When you can’t find what you need, you make it yourself, right? As knitters, we all understand that impulse–a chance to get exactly what we want in the color, size, shape, fiber that we want. Sometimes, you just have to do it yourself.

Well, that’s more or less what happened to Cheryl Brunette.

Review: Teach Yourself Visually Knitting Design

Part of the excellent “Teach Yourself Visually” series, this book has a lot of what you’d expect–first, and foremost, lots of pictures. Just about every stitch, every method, every step along the way gets a photo or an illustration, so you’re not left guessing as to what, exactly, you need to do to line your knitted bag, or what a sock’s heel flap should look like. As you’d expect, the pictures are clear and basic. Not fancy, “art” shots that wouldn’t really show you the details you need, but simple, bread-and-butter pictures that do the job.

Review: Knitting Art

The first thing you need to know is that this is NOT a knitting book. It’s an Art Book.

That is, it’s a book about artists who use knitting as their medium–not paint, not marble, not clay, but knitting.

Review: Continuous Cables

I’ve wanted this book since I read the subtitle, “An Exploration of Knitted Cabled Knots, Rings, Swirls, and Curlicues.” That pretty much sums up the appeal of cables for me–that intricate interweaving playfulness as they wind around–and I think it’s clear that Melissa Leapman likes them for the same reason.

Review: Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls

There are two things I need to tell you first. One, is that there are two editions of this book, since Interweave Press nicely saved it from its dreaded out-of-print state. And, two, I own a copy of both editions. This should pretty much tell you right off the bat that I like this book. Or that, really, I love this book. My very first attempt at lace was inspired by this book. So, it’s possible that I might be just a little biased.

Review: The Knitter’s Handy book of Sweater Patterns

Do you knit sweaters? Do you like different shapes? Do you hate having to do all the math for designing your own sweaters, but don’t want to be tied to pre-written sweater patterns?

This book is for you.

Taking the basic sweater shapes–Drop-Shoulder, Modified Drop-Shoulder, Set-In Sleeve, Saddle-Shoulder, Raglan, and Seamless Yoke–this book tells you EXACTLY what you need to do to make one.

Review: Mason-Dixon Knitting

Ranging from the simple (”Warshcloths”) to the sublime (those Log Cabin afghans), this book absolutely lives up to its subtitle of “The Curious Knitters’ Guide: Stories, Patterns, Advice, Opinions, Questions, Answers, Jokes and Pictures. Created for Knitters Everywhere who Share the Give’em Hell Spirit of Just Picking up the Needles and Making Stuff.”

Really, that says it all.

Review: Knitting Around

Well, most knitters have heard of Elizabeth Zimmerman–and if you haven’t, you should get to your local library as quickly as your feet can take you to check her out. She’s the original knitting maverick, and the embodiment of a Thinking Knitter. She was the first writer to really talk about knitting as important in and of itself, rather than just a means to a nice little sweater. She encouraged people to try new things, to experiment, and above all, not to allow themselves to be restricted by what was written in a pattern. Trying to knit a sweater in a yarn you love but your gauge is different than the pattern? Adapt! Want to add in cables to the basic shape? Go ahead! Have a crazy idea in your head? Give it a try and see what happens! Not only that, she encouraged Continental-style knitting, and knitting in the round whenever possible–both of which are my preferred methods. (Largely, no doubt, because of these two books.)

Review: Vogue Knitting

As comprehensive knitting references go, it’s hard to beat this one. Vogue Knitting, in fact, is so nice, they produced it twice–the orignal version came out in 1989, and they revised and updated it in 2002. I got my original copy as a Christmas gift in 1989. I had only been knitting for a year or so and hadn’t yet tackled cables or lace, and barely new what intarsia was, and this book was a door-opener. I basically knitted my way through the book. While the rest of the family took post-turkey dinner naps, I sat with the book, a pair of knitting needles and some yarn, giving a try to each new concept as it came up. Cables? Hmm, let’s try that. Lace? Let’s see, yarn over, knit-two-together … I can do that. It was completely rewarding and enlightening at the same time. By the time I’d gotten through the book, I felt prepared to tackle just about anything.

Review: KnitKnit

The author says in the introduction: “The people in this book are not the only creative people working with knitting today, but are the ones who I have come to know and work with through KnitKnit, the knitters I have long admired who were available to take part in the project, or the knitters I found through a very pleasant research process.” So, this isn’t really the kind of book you pick up because you want a knitting pattern–although there are definitely some good ones in here. What you DO buy this book for is sheer inspiration.