Knit It Your Way: Change the Yarn to Suit Your Style [Paperback]

Cynthia Yanok Wise (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2000

Whether knitters are looking to meet their personal warmth factor, their favorite fiber factor, or even their budget factor, they'll be amazed at how easy it is to add maximum flexibility to their knitting with this creative, step-by-step approach. Eighteen gorgeous projects show how to substitute favorite yarns or yarns already on hand to achieve a variety of looks from a single design.
-- Luxurious knitwear designs include an Inca Jewel pullover, cozy cable-knit cardigan, and breezy short-sleeved pullover, plus beautiful scarves, socks, and purses
-- Classic knitting patterns range from cable and Cat's Eyes shapes to elaborate intertwining and eyelet designs.
-- Ample advice is provided for choosing the right yarns to create looks from cool to cozy, casual to dressy

Editorial Reviews

Review

Cynthia Wise empowers knitters by revealing that substituting yarns is a very simple process...a friendly, easy-to-follow guide. -- Interweave Knits, Fall 2000 issue

About the Author

Cynthia Wise discovered her love of knitting when her mother taught her to knit at the age of ten. Her first projects--a scarf, hat, and slippers--were created from loud pink variegated yarn on size 11 needles. Cynthia's childhood hobby has since flourished into a passion that has her constantly striving to develop her art.

After a debilitating injury left her unable to work as a chiropractor for several years, Cynthia concentrated her energies on designing, custom and production knitting, and learning new techniques. Although Cynthia is once again a practicing physician, she makes time to attend knitting classes and conferences and spend time with nature, to further draw out the artist inside.

Cynthia's versatile knitwear designs have been featured in numerous national magazines, such as Knitter's, Knit 'n Style, Cast On, and Machine Knitter's Source. She has designed patterns for companies such as Aurora Yarns, Cherry Tree Hill Yarn, and Schaefer Yarns, as well as for her company, Designs by Cynthia Wise.

Product Details

• Paperback: 126 pages
• Publisher: Martingale and Company (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564773132
• ISBN-13: 978-1564773135
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,251,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Major Disappointment, June 19, 2001

By 

A. Lupia "amlbee" (Branford, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Knit It Your Way: Change the Yarn to Suit Your Style (Paperback)

What a disappointment! This is a book based on the empty promise that the author is going to show some new way to solve the age old knitter's dilemma of yarn substitutions and how to make them. There is nothing new in this book; she solves yarn substitutions the way we all do and have been doing for a million years; swatch, swatch, swatch. This information is available from magazines, books, classes and other knitters!

She does show examples of sweaters knitted in two different weights of yarn, and for the novice knitter I suppose this could be interesting, and possibly informative. However, for any knitter who has made even one successful yarn substitution, I feel this book is an expensive retelling of an old tale.

I would strongly suggest that anyone thinking about purchasing this book first seek out a copy to look through.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Could use some more yarn varieties for comparison, February 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Knit It Your Way: Change the Yarn to Suit Your Style (Paperback)

This is not as bad a book as some reviewers have made it out to be. Reading it, I got the sense that this author was NOT someone who gets all the yarn she wants from doing work for the yarn companies, but instead has to actually BUY her yarn, like most of us.

The styles were basic, but nice, and were shown as completed garments in both yarn choices. Many pattern books show other colorways and yarns, but only as pattern swatches. It is a much cheaper book than "Simply Beautiful Sweaters" which was totally about $$$$$ yarn.

It would have been nice to see more closeups of the yarns that were used, so it would be a little easier to substitute what you already have. I also thought her yarns, even her nicer ones, did not look all that different in photos from some of the rock-bottom discount yarns available--the cover photo really suffered in this regard. Perhaps the next printing will have some of these issues addressed. It still is a pretty good book.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars There is much in this book that is good..., January 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Knit It Your Way: Change the Yarn to Suit Your Style (Paperback)

Many years ago, a critic in the New Yorker wrote, "There is much in this book that is good, and much in this book that is new; but what is good is not new, and what is new is not good." Well, I won't be that harsh, (the garments herein are stylish and utterly simple) but it is hardly news that yarns and gauges can be freely substituted to arrive at a made-to-measure garment.

The KnitCalc handheld knitting calculator has been on the market for twenty years or more, though with a little planning, any regular calculator can be used to perform many of the same functions. And machine knitters have had charting devices since the 1970s, simple mechanical or battery-operated devices which enable the knitter to draw a garment outline (or even use a commercial tissue sewing pattern in the case of the Brother) to scale, and simply knit away as the garment outline clicks past. These devices make it very simple to knit any garment in any yarn, and any gauge. It makes any knitting pattern which offers a schematic fair game for the knitter's carte blanche creativity.

What is essential with all these methods is the careful preparation of a gauge swatch. It's important to buy extra yarn for swatching--perhaps as much as an extra skein--and keep sampling until you come up with the exact fabric you want your garment to be. The swatch is the key to any system. Whichever method you choose, learning to knit like this gives you complete creative freedom. You will never feel you must use the exact yarn specified in a pattern (almost always an expensive yarn), or even the stitch. You become the designer, and in taking control of your knitting in this way, you will find it brings the greatest possible satisfaction.