Customer Reviews

101 Designer One-Skein Wonders: A world of possibilities inspired by just one skein

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have the original One Skein book and love the projects that are in it, so I was excited when the new one came out. I was not disappointed. There are many cute projects here, many that even a beginner(I would consider myself an advanced beginner) could do. I have never made a sweater yet, but I know I could knit 3 of the 4 baby sweaters. There are many cute socks, hats and scarves too. I've already picked out 23 patterns that I would like to make some time. That's not bad when most knitting books seem to have 2-3 patterns that I would really want to make.

While there are patterns for many different weights of yarn, the largest chapter is the worsted weight chapter.

Some of my favorite patterns (and to give you an idea of what's in the book) are: magic loop minis(mini mittens, sweater, and hat), wave jumper, sock-it-to-me scarf, garter stitch loop-through scarf, pink tweed for baby(sweater), baby squash hat, child's hat with pompom, boy-oh-boy(sweater), not-your-average washcloths, new directions hat, baby basket hat, fishbowl baby hat, elizabeth's perfect hat, spiral hat, kat's hat, taos slippers, blanket buddy, waterfall scarf, cross-stitch scarf, infant's roll neck pullover, and zane's coming home sweater.

I think most knitters will find many patterns in this book that they would like to knit. A great addition to your knitting library.

I had considered buying both One Skein books for quite a long time. I figured that they had been very high up in the knitting book sales for a very long time, they had great reviews, and I thought that would mean something. The very first pattern that I tried (the eyelet shrug) had errors. I went to the Storey website for the errata and ended up printing out forty seven pages of errata for both books. Then, the corrections weren't even complete for the pattern that I was working on. Wow. On the flip side, I have done enough knitting to work out the errors, sometimes before they even occur. My shrug turned out terrific, and I think that I will be making quite a few more of the patterns in this book. I take apart sweaters from the thrift store for the wool, and this will be a good resource for me. Just be aware of the multitude of errors, be prepared to work around them, make notes about them, and be prepared to use these patterns again and again.

I was having an unusually hard time with the Lace Spiral Scarf pattern and finally went to the publishers website. Imagine my surprise when I found SEVEN pages of corrections for this book. The scarf pattern has a mistake in 7 rows of the 16 row repeat. The cute baby Wave Jumper has 7 errors. Twenty Six of the 101 patterns are defective. It took a good hour to tape all the corrections into the book. If you buy the book, go to [...] and print out the corrections as there is no telling how long they will be available online. I will be reluctant to buy anything from this publisher again. The patterns are cute but there are just too many errors.

My shelf of small-project books gets a lot of action, but who can resist a new knitting book? I leafed through a friend's copy of 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders and decided I had to have my own copy.

All the projects are displayed in color photos at the front of the book rather than with the patterns, a feast for the eyes and the imagination; I like browsing the projects all together. This is a familiar look from Storey Publishing and it helps to keep the price very reasonable.

The patterns are laid out clearly and with a lot of detail, possibly more detail than an experienced knitter wants but excellent for the less experienced. Nowadays, however, most knitters prefer to see charted patterns and it would be great to see charts in future One-Skein Wonders editions.

Yarns are specified but it will be easy enough to find projects for my precious skeins. Given that you can only do so much with a single skein, there is a surprising variety here. I have several projects tagged for my "take-along knitting." A few that caught my eye are the alpaca hand warmers, a mini-purse, the lace beanie, and Kat's Hat. I'm not sure which baby sweater to knit first, Blue Wave or Feather and Fan. There's a very pretty Three Season Lace Vest that looks wonderful. As for Elizabeth's Perfect Hat, what's more beautiful than Noro Silk Garden? but it would be great in other variegated worsteds as well.

I'm delighted with this book and look forward to reducing my stash. Or ... maybe ... some yarn shopping?

This book has a number of useful designs. There are a lot of good looking hats and designs for scarfs, shawls, a shrug and lots of baby items. Although specific yarns are called for each project is categorized by yarn weight, for easy substitution. Some of the photos could be better. A shawl, a dogwood design, might be nice but you really can't see the pattern very well. The part in focus is all gathered together and the rest is out of focus. A major flaw is the lack of charts. You would think that an Interweave editor would have the sense to chart patterns but she didn't. The patterns are all written out in text. All in all a useful book that will be helpful during the upcoming holiday season. There are a few crochet patterns.

Lovely book, patterns are nice and easy. Only one critic: "one skein" projects aren't exactly made with single skeins, most of them use huge skeins and sometimes cones.

I bought this book because I thought it would be a great way to use up some of the random single skeins of yarn that I've collected from buying one or two too many skeins for large projects. However, many of the patterns call for far more yarn than one skien. Some require 1000 yards of yarn - thats wayyyy more yards than any of my skeins have!

The patterns are lovely and for the most part they are clear and well written, but I only gave this book 3 stars because it didn't live up to its one skein per project sales pitch.

If you are looking for a book with some nice smaller sized projects this book might be for you, but if you just want to get rid of some extra single skeins be careful, even the baby sweaters will require at least two!

I love this book! It is one of the few knitting books I own, I am super picky about what I add to my collection. I have made several of the patterns in the book and am planning to make more. The only downside to this book is that there are a lot of errors in it. Make sure you go to the publisher's website before making any of the patterns so you can have the corrected instructions.

The patterns are nice, and relatively easy to follow, however, the title of one-skein wonders? Most of the skeins they are using are 1,000 yard long skeins!

I am currently in a knitalong that is using this book and was frankly mostly disappointed with the projects that are included. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of okay projects that would be good for beginners, with some more advanced socks and lacework shawl projects. The issue is that most of the projects are knit with sock yarns or something equally small and often uses huge skeins. So far, when substituting other yarns, none of my projects have been single-skein. There are barely 12 projects in this book that appealed to me and one of those projects, the cross-stitch scarf, took me forever to figure out because the directions are very unclear. I did not like the variety of projects in this book and would not have purchased it if it were not part of a class but I feel that it would be an all right book for a advanced beginner looking for some easier projects that can be completed, for the most part, in a couple of nights and somewhat economically.