Customer Reviews

Knitting on the Edge: Ribs, Ruffles, Lace, Fringes, Floral, Points & Picots: The Essential Collection of 350 Decorative Borders

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While the designs and photographs in this book are absolutely beautiful, I don't know if any of the reviewers actually tried knitting anything. The book is filled with mistakes and typos! I tried to contact the publisher, but there is no listing in New York for Sixth & Spring Publishing. I finally found a phone number in a knitting magazine. They were not very pleasant, but did tell me to contact "webmaster@sohopublishing.com" to get the corrections. The book does have a disclaimer about mistakes, but they should have tried knitting from their own instructions before publishing this expensive book!

How frustrating! I really wanted this beautiful book and finally got it. Poured over it for weeks and then I got the time to concentrate and actually try out the patterns. Try as I might, I COULD NOT EXECUTE THE PATTERNS! I am a grandmother who has been knitting since I was a kid, armed with my "Handook of Knitting" and ready to understand abbreviations, etc. YET.... I found that the amount of cast-ons at the start of the edgings I tried did not match up with the directions on the first rows. For instance, if it said "Cast on 9" - when I went to do the first pattern row, the instructions always went past those 9 stitches and I could not complete that first row.
I am utterly frustrated and crying out for help. Someone PLEASE HELP!

What a cool book! There are three pullover patterns, two scarves, a purse and a cardigan, but the real stars are all the different stitch patterns for edgings. These are organized in chapters by type, and range from ribs, ruffles, lace and fringes to flora, points and picots. Each chapter's sample swatches are knit in a different color theme and are shown on the same two-page spread as the stitch instructions. The swatches range from the simple to the very sophisticated, the colors are lush and tempting, and the instructions look straightforward and clear. The number of alternatives offered is dizzying! The reader can peruse 102 different rib swatches, for example.

Now I know why I have not been able to start my next bag yet -- I was waiting for the inspiration of this kind of a collection! I'm sure I'll be able to pick out one of the cabled fringe edgings soon and cast on for a new project. How could I not, with so many tempting images before me?

My only gripe -- there's no index, so if you remember that you wanted to use the saxon braid and you didn't write down the page number, you have to scan through a whole chapter to find it. This is a minor concern, but given that some chapters are upwards of 20 pages long, I thought I'd mention it. The entire book is just under 170 pages.

This is probably the perfect companion to Ann Budd's Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.

I too fell in love with all of the opportunities this book seems to offer. But once I tried to knit the scarf on the cover I ran into 2 typos in the first 6 rows. The corrections can be found online at: vogueknitting.com under corrections. I was very frustrated and now not to excited to try and knit another project from the book.

Knitting on the Edge is a collection of basically everything you could possibly consider using on the edges of a knitting pattern, from lacy borders to the more mundane ribbing, garter stitch border or hem.
The book is pitched toward beginners or intermediate knitters, making it very acessible. However, more expert knitters, used to charts, will be annoyed by the endless strings of "k5, p2 tog, yo...", and the inability to edit the patterns on the fly.
The chapter on ribs is for the most part uninspired, while the section on ruffles and pleats is worth a look, especially if your taste runs towards things with frilly edges, or you see yourself concocting a garment for a baby girl sometime in the future.
The lace section is deeply dissapointing. The examples are swatches knitted in some kind of raspberry-colored worsted yarn. It's almost impossible to determine where the eyelets are, let alone what kind of pattern they make.
There is a paltry collection of 25 apparently rather uninteresting traditional sideways lace borders, with the majority of the chapter taken up by borders that consist of a few repeats of a lace pattern that are bound off at the final row. Besides neglecting the entire point of a traditional lace border (which, if knitted onto the live stitches of a piece, completely avoids binding off, maintaining the inherent elasticity of lace) it leads the knitter into the difficult prospect of attempting to bind off a lace pattern in such a manner that it dosen't bind up and look a complete wreck.
The chapter on fringe and tassels demonstrates several clever methods, incorporating traditional knotted fringes and fringes made from dropped sitches, some of which are cut. There are also interesting patterns made from fringes along the edges of cable patterns, for that "Celtic Cowboy" look.
The section entitled "Flora" contains representations of plant anatomy in various states of abstraction. The more realistic versions in sculptural stitches or lace are quite lovely.
The final chapter, "Points and Picots", also covers some patterns that would be better off classed in the "lace" department, as well as such standbys as The Hem, in all its various turning rows, and The Band of Garter Stitch (The Band of Ribbing having been covered in a previous chapter).
The final section of the book contains patterns for the use of some of the edgings in the book. The ruffled purse is really the only project here that was particularly inspired; everything else was rather ho-hum: edgings go on the ends of things: cuffs, collars, and hems. I would have been happier if Epstien had included some more challenging projects, or ones that pushed the envelope of edging.
Overall this book bites off far more than it can eat, let alone comfortably chew. Epstien only scratches the surface of her topic. I would have been happier with a much larger and more in-depth coverage of the topic, especially that of lace borders. Nicky Epstein is not the next Barbara Walker. However, this is a good introduction to borders, and a good book for any designer (aspiring or otherwise) to own.

After much deliberation, I decided to buy the three Nicky Epstein books in this series (On the Edge, Over the Edge, Beyond the Edge). Each of these books are just gorgeous, filled with color illustrations of each border or design on glossy pages. In essence, I'll be reviewing all three of the books together, but focusing on this one since I'm currently doing a border from it.

While I'd heard of Nicky Epstein (if you're into knitting, I don't see how you couldn't!), I waited about a year before buying her books, and I'm glad I did. I needed the time to become a better knitter. I consider myself an advanced beginner or an intermediate knitter, and I don't think these are books for beginners. For one thing, they're not meant to be pattern books. There are very few patterns included in them (and the ones that are there are pretty scary looking! When I was first learning to knit I would have given up, because they're very complex-looking). The author assumes that her audience would know how to do some of the more advanced stitches used in her border patterns, and that they would also have some experience under their belt to figure out how to use her borders in bigger projects like sweaters or blankets or whatever.

That being said, I'm taking a star off because it's really hard to find errata for this book on the internet. I had to do some searching before I found a scant two or three corrections on the Vogue Knitting website. I spent two days working and reworking a specific border (the Serendipity, p.83) before I realized that the numbers the author had listed for how many stitches the pattern worked over were wrong. As I continued in the pattern, I found other number errors in it. When I looked for corrections, I couldn't find any for that specific pattern. Since I know this book has been out for a while, I would hope that all the pattern errors would have been worked out in later printings. Other than that, a great book and totally worth the money.

I agree with other reviewers who pointed out the mistakes on the instructions. I bought the book recently and tried to chart the butterfly pattern on page 139 with no success, even and odd rows have a different number of stitches (and no, there are no increases or decreases involved).

So, good for inspiration, but you are better equipped with Barbara Walker's "treasuries".

I really liked the book's collection of edgings. They have been very useful for adapting favourite patterns that I know fit well and suit me.

However, I would have liked more information on how to incorporate the edgings i.e. knitting on versus sewing on. This would have been particularly useful for the braid edgings that will not be not knitted in the same direction as the rest of the garment.

There are many mistakes in this book...and it is poorly written. Patterns should be more clear. One person stated she couldn't find any errors...well I beg to differ with you, so far every pattern I've started has errors and have not been able to complete either project because of them. what is up with P1 P5...????? why not p6????? I do not understand that and have never seen it before....crazy

The pictures are great. The back index is great. BUT WHOEVER wrote the line-by-line directions was an idiot. The written patterns don't add up. As an experianced knitter it is frustrating to try an knit with their directions! I'd say save your money!!!