I sometimes fall into the small town rut. You know the one. “You can’t find any of the good books/movies/whatever in this tiny-ass town.” Then I remember the glory of the Georgia Pines System, kindly supported by all you Georgia property tax payers. Thanks guys. If you search for books in the GA library system and they have what you want but it’s, say, 8 hours away. They’ll send it to you. It’s awesome.
So I finally corked up my whining by ordering some of the knitting books I’ve been lusting after. In they came. There was some new guy at the library who caught me off guard. He was such a somber, frowning little man even though he was probably my age. I was surprised when he asked if I knit as a hobby or if I had an Etsy store, judging by all the knitting books I had on hold. I suppose I should have been more surprised that he knew what Etsy was.
Anywho. I’ve checked out quite a few recently and thought I’d throw out my opinion. Usually, I’m left feeling very underwhelmed by the content and patterns of these books. I’m constantly annoyed at how much space is dedicated to teaching people a basic knit stitch in a pattern book when they could have used that space for, I don’t know, PATTERNS! There are plenty of how-to books out there. I’m only interested in instruction if it’s an unusual technique used in one of the patterns or it’s getting into the intricacies of garment fitting. Something more useful to the people who might actually knit something from the damn book. But I digress.
Nobody cares anyways. So I’ll move on to the first book I got.
If you can’t read that, it’s called “Exquisite Little Knits” by Iris Schreier.
Okay, so “knitting with luxurious specialty yarns” means fun fur. There was one scarf in particular that was attractive, but uninspiring overall. These are all very simple patterns with “expensive” novelty yarn. Granted, I do love a good novelty yarn and these were very pretty, but I wouldn’t make most of these.
The one I would make used a technique for ribbon yarn that I’ve never seen before. Essentially you weave it between knit and purl stitches. However, it never explains how to weave in your ends, so I’m assuming you weave in the same pattern as the rest of the ribbon and maybe tack the edges together with a needle and thread for more hold if you like. There was also instructions on how to cast on stitches to a ring for purses or belts.
If the rating system was out of ten, I’d give it a three. For beginner patterns or to browse for pretty yarn, it’s right there. If you’re looking for something challenging or inspiring, you’ll probably be as disappointed as I was.
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