Customer Reviews

Knitted Icons

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love this book! it has some really fun ideas for making your very own cuddly pop icon. Who can resist making a Gandhi for a 5 year old boy? What Grandma wouldn't love to sell a set of the Beatles, a Madonna or Audrey Hepburn at her church bazaar? Wonderful!
Unfortunately, as I worked on Godzilla, I noticed that the assembly instructions are very incomplete! Where is the pattern for his mouth? Where do I sew on his legs? While I think I can cobble this together, I think the author needs to work on her assembly instructions!
I can hardly wait to start on David Bowie!

If you are a new knitter, or new to toys, this book might be a good place to start. However, be warned that the costumes are mostly sewn, not knitted. There are pattern pieces which a more experienced knitter could use to create knitted costumes.
The book suffers from a lack of precision, especially if compared to someone like Jean Greenhowe, who gives you very specific instructions as to where to place facial features. Greenhowe tells you how many rows and stitches to count from the center; this author tells you to "add features as shown in the photo."
Also, the gloves drove me crazy - they are knitted separately instead of using a color change. They all look like boxing gloves, which is fine for Ali, but not for Jackie O.
That being said, the modest cost of the book, and the inspiration it can provide, makes it worthwhile. I'm glad I bought it, and glad I didn't pay any more for it than I did.

"Knitted Icons" is worth the price of purchase just for novelty value. Starting with a simple knitted doll (the pattern of which is provided), Meldrum provides instructions for dressing and decorating this doll to look like Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Lee, Abe Lincoln, Jackie O, Che Guevara, Jimi Hendrix, Albert Einstein, Cher, James Dean, Muhammed Ali, Madonna, Andy Warhol, Chairman Mao, the Beatles, Charlie Chaplin, Gandhi, the Queen, Bob Marley, Audrey Hepburn, Bob Dylan, Mr T, David Bowie and Elvis (she also provides pattens for knitting King Kong and Godzilla, although these are not from the basic doll pattern). The doll clothes are a combination of knitted and sewn items.

Although unlikely to suit absolute beginners, I would say this book would be appropriate for advanced beginners to intermediate knitters. The items in this book can be knitted in a relatively small period of time and would make ideal presents for fans of pop-culture. The patterns in this book can also be easily modified to make other celebrity dolls (I have plans to make a "Kill Bill" Uma Thurman doll using the Bruce Lee yellow tracksuit, for example). The only reason why I didn't give this five stars was because the patterns for the (sewn) doll clothes are not printed at full size and need to be enlarged (something which I hate doing). Other than that, though, this is a good book which provides a welcome change from the Japanese-style knitted toy books that seem to be flooding the market at the moment.

The designs in this book are adorable, but the instructions are the worst I've seen in nearly 30 years as a knitter. They're incomplete and full of mistakes--I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

Though I was excited about the prospect of creating some of these icons -- I found the patterns lacked clear and concise instructions, some instructions for rows were missing altogether. There was a lack of consitency in the way it was written which made it difficult to create the dolls.

I bought this book out of curiosity, mostly. I've gone through a year of knitting toys of all kinds and I thought this looked fun and different. Well, it is different, but it doesn't quite deliver the fun.

The dolls are very basic and easy to knit with directions that are pretty straight forward. The pattern for the basic doll is used in every pattern, so it's not intimidating for most knitters. As with most toy patterns, the toys are knit flat and the sewn together to create the 3-dimensional doll. I have yet to figure out why this is necessary when knitting in the round is so easy, requires much less finishing work and produces a cleaner seamless finish. Hmmm...my own personal quirk...

The rest of the pattern book is for the clothing and accessories for each doll. I was not all that impressed with the look of the finished dolls and their clothing was stiff and stilted. For most, if I hadn't known who this doll was supposed to be, I would have never guessed.

Finally, the people chosen as "icons" is a bit odd to me. Who decided this? What were the qualifications? There is a small box of information about each character, but the information given certainly does not qualify the person or people as an "icon". Granted, some of them are self-qualified, people like Albert Einstein (whose doll looks more like the professor from Back to the Future), the Beatles, and Marilyn Monroe (who is the single adorable toy in the entire book).

Overall, I found this to be a collection of unattractive adult toys with angry looks on many of their faces. Maybe it's the adult toy thing with me. I don't know, but I wouldn't be giving my child a Madonna doll or a Bob Marly look-alike, or even Ghandi for Christmas, however cutting edge and politically correct it may be. My vote on this book is, "No thanks." There are plenty of other knitted toy books out there. I just don't need a knitted replica of Mr. T. in my life and I certainly wouldn't thrust it on anyone else.

It's amazing , funny and easy even if you don't have a big practice...... It give's you a big desire to start immediatly one of this project

The book was boring but I had an idea that I was going a Spongebob Squarepants doll with Patrick and Squidward.