Customer Reviews

Knitting Handbook: An Instructional Guide to Knitting

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

 

 

I really liked this knitting guide book. It has clear pictures and is well written. I also like the spiral binding, which makes it easy to use. I found the format useful for understanding the instructions.

I would recommend it to anyone who would like to learn to knit or already does.

Sheila : )

... and have never used it. You can find everything in this book on youtube. Not much more to it.

I recently purchased the Knitting Handbook during a search for knitting patterns. I do not like charted designs. However, you can pretty much look at the patterns and visually determine how they are knit. I did not pay much attention to the patterns in the back, altho I did note that the largest size is 42, as noted by another reviewer. The actual instructions for knitting, along with helpful hints, are basic and actually brief, but enlightening, enticing me to read them. I would recommend this as a basic book to have in anyone's library, and hopefully the public library as well.

I just got this book a few weeks ago. The advice it gives is great. I finally learned how to knit English style using this book (after years of knitting using the combined method) and it helped me learn how to decipher knitting charts and how to increase and decrease effectively. The diagrams are helpful and the author's tone is not condescending (like in so many knitting books). I also love how it's spiral bound which makes placing it in my lap while i knit on the couch so much easier!

BUT... it has a down side. The patterns are so vile and disgusting that when I first saw them, I almost put the book back on the shelf. Heck! I even gagged!!!! The patterns include a sweater that's emblazoned with a large fair isle knight on horseback amongst other even more ugly items (like those tacky fair isle/norweigan style deer sweaters!)

I'll never EVER use the patterns in this book as they're so ugly that even my grandmother would have never even worn them... or even considered making. It's patterns like this that make knitting look bad! Knitters are fashionable and I wish that instructional book authors would realize this! (For fashionable patterns check out the Stitch'n Bitch series by Debbie Stoller... her books are popular for that reason)

Despite the horrible patterns, this book offers something I haven't seen in any other instructional book: a large listing of cable and lace patterns (well, charts), as well as a large listing of knitted stitches. This book is worth buying just for that.

So I definitely recommend this book as an instructional guide... just rip out and burn the patterns as they're so ugly they're not worth taking the time to make