Customer Reviews

45 Fine & Fanciful Hats to Knit: Berets, Toques, Cones, Stars, Pentagons, and More

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If you like knitting in the round or making small portable projects, this is an excellent book. I'm a beginning knitter - I have only been knitting 6 months and am completely self-taught - and I've made several hats from this book, adapting head bands from one, body patterns from another, and shapes from a third, in my own colors. While there may be nine basic shapes, the permutations are much greater than the 45 in the title.

The charts are clear and helpful (I gather there are minor problems with some, but I haven't had any trouble deciphering them). Zilboorg gives clear directions for various types of beginnings and finishings. As a neophyte, I found them easy to follow.

Each hat took a couple evenings and was quite enjoyable to do. The shapes and colors are uplifting and lots of fun to knit and to wear. I've been recommmending this book to people who have admired my knitting. And wearing one of these hats is a great way to brighten your day and keep you head warm at the same time.

The hat ideas are wonderful. Too bad there are so many errors in the charts. I contacted Lark books for a copy of their errata (a correction sheet for the errors in this book). What I received was a very poor photocopy of the corrected charts. The corrected charts were so small, and the photocopy was so many generations from the original, that I could absolutely not read it. I counted twenty charts from the book that have corrections! I am an experienced knitter, but I have a hard time getting into a new knitting project, knowing that the charts are wrong. I contacted Lark books repeatedly to get a cleaner, more legible copy of the errata. So far, I have received nothing. I'm very disappointed. Further, the gauge she suggests is too small. More specific instructions with regards to yarns and needle sizes would have been very helpful.

I kept my copy, because the hats are prettty to look at and someday I might try one (maybe not now that I've read about the errors here on Amazon) but I can understand why someone would be frustrated enough to return this. You don't buy a cookbook without recipes. The point of having patterns/recipes is so that you can replicate something you like. It is not a crime, really, no matter what people who read the Zimmerman books might say.

Not everybody likes charts. I am sorry, but it's the truth. It would not kill these authors to write things out, at least ONCE and please do not whine that it would add to the cost of the book. It doesn't have to, and hey, we have computers now, it's not like you're scribing these books on parchment with a quill pen by candlelight.

There, now that that's out of my system, I would still say to buy the book (though it is somewhat overpriced considering you get such little guidance and that there really are only 9 hats with variations), but it is NOT for beginners, and NOT for those who have better things to do than figure out badly written charts/instructions, even if they DO know how.

I have been knitting hats all summer to hone my skills, waiting for the day that Anna Zilboorg's new book was published. Any book that promises "Berets, Toques, Cones, Stars, Pentagons and more..." is my kind of book!

After having read through the book several times, I started an Egyptian Hat and ran into the one thing that I found frustrating. The numbers don't always fit. In this particular case, the number of stitches to cast on and the first chart to knit do not match up. It turns out that this is not a particularly overwhelming problem. Zilboorg's approach is so simple and logical that I quickly figured out what was meant to happen and went on to produce a fairly respectible version of that hat pictured in her book. Any minor problems are more than made up for by the striking pictures of hats that seem to be inspired by Zilboorg's beloved Turkish socks with attitude supplied by Dr. Suess.

Like her earlier work, Fancy Feet, this book emphasises the basics and avoids esoteric techniques. While some of these hats would seem to be a bit extreme for an average office worker, there is a sense of fun, style and color that draws you in. This book was well worth the price and will keep me busy working on Christmas presents for everyone on my list.

These are indeed fine and fanciful hats, but I sure couldn't manage to knit one from the given "patterns" that came out anything like the pictures in the book. Perhaps most annoying to me was the complete lack of gauge indications, which the author dismisses in one paragraph in the "General Information" with a blithe "Fortunately, exact fit is not necessary in a knitted hat." Ha! What few mentions she does give of gauge in the general instructions are inconsistent - in one paragraph, she says that most of the hats are made with worsted weight wool, yet a couple of paragraphs later, she says that for a particularly large head, a hat can be made of worsted weight instead of DK. And it's not as though "worsted weight" gives you enough indication anyway, as anyone who has tried to compare gauge on mass-market acrylic vs. Wool-Ease vs. expensive alpaca knows.

As far as how much yarn to buy for each hat - well, Zilboorg tells us we'll need 2 yards of each color per 2-color round. So, I guess, we are supposed to count the exact number of rounds in the pattern ourselves, noting which colors are in which rounds, then multiply that by 2 yards per color, and then divide that into the number of yards for the brand of yarn we select. Zilboorg doesn't even tell us what brand, weight, or style she uses for her models, nor how many skeins she used for a given model. Would it have been such a bother for her to have put a paragraph with each one that said something like "For the model, I used Brand X Shetland, one skein each of the following seven colors..." ? That little bit of information alone would help most of us a great deal.

In short: buy it for the pretty pictures, if you like, and if you collect fair isle charts, you may want to buy it for those, but don't expect any actual patterns with which to knit hats. A good book of patterns is like a conversation; this one is a monologue by an attractive but totally flaky stranger on a street corner.

This book does not have 45 hats in it, it has 9 hats (berets, toques, cones, stars, Egyptian hats, onion domes, stacked hats, Angela hats - like toques with long rectangular straps hanging from the crown, and pentagons) interpreted in several different color designs each. Although the cost of this book was many times the price of a single pattern, I bought the book because I couldn't find a single onion dome pattern. Well, the "patterns" are really just color charts for the designs she used. Sample instructions for the onion dome hat (instructions are the same for all 5 onion dome hats): "Cast on the number of stitches indicated on the chart using a 16" circular needle....Work the desired band....Follow the chart for the bottom of the hat. Repeat the band. Work the top chart...when you finish the chart, change to the color you want for the ball [pompom or tassel]...then make the ball as instructed on page 11." This is not what I consider a knitting pattern and I'm sending it back to Amazon.com in Monday's mail.

I have knit several of the hats from this book and absolutely LOVE them! Anna Zilboorg is a visionary designer...she ranks right up there with Elizabeth Zimmerman as a Knitting guru. You can't help but smile when you wear these hats..the pictures in the book don't begin to do them justice.

I love these designs...very creative and fun to knit. HOWEVER, this is definitely NOT a book for a beginning knitter, or for any knitter who likes to follow patterns exactly as written. In order to enjoy these clever designs, the knitter must take the time to think, and to chart out the next step....

Thank you Amazon.com for showing the "used books" for Anna Zilboorg's 45 Fine and Fanciful Hats. What a wonderful book, I can knit out of it for the rest of the century. After checking it out of the local library a kabillion times and buying a scanner to copy out some of the patterns, I finally said HAPPY BIRTHDAY and bought a used copy. Just a treasure. Too bad it is out of print. I took the first hat I made out of the book to my Knit Group and I was (well, really, the hat was) A STAR!!

It seems stupid to me to argue if this book has 45 patterns or not. Maybe it shows only 45 hats in 9 basic shapes, but if you allow yourself to be inspired this book is an endless resource for hundreds of hats to knit.

Apart from the berets, the cones, and the absolutely smashing toques the presented hats admittedly are quite unusual and may need some courage to wear, at least for adults, children usually are more adventurous. Most patterns can be easily be changed to something simpler, even to a plain stocking cap. You still will end up with a hat for which people will envy you.

If you are not an experienced knitter or never have knitted anything without directions for every stitch from cast-on to cast-off, this book may not be the right choice for you as it indeed offers only the most basic directions. But if you are a fearless (even not very experienced) knitter and not opposed to learn from possible failure (don't use some cashmere/silk blend for your first cap) or if you just want to have a cheerful collection of charts for small stranded colorwork at hand (use them for socks or mittens too), this book is for you. If you are lucky you'll find it even at a reasonable price. I paid less than $30 for a used but very clean copy, international shipping already included.