The Portable Crafter: Knitting [Hardcover]

Leanne Bennett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2004 | Series: Portable Crafter

Knitters love their craft so much and find it so relaxing that they just can’t seem to put down their needles. Now they don’t have to, because these 26 hats, purses, pillows, wraps, and mittens are made expressly for taking along. No matter where you go, this portable guide, filled with detailed instructions, easy-to-follow patterns, and beautifully-styled color photographs, puts a project at your fingertips. A basics section covers the different yarns, including the new, fun novelty yarns with exciting embellishments. Knit a fast fluffy hat out of mohair or one for a new baby, a lovely lacy ribbed scarf, a pretty basket-weave towel, an elegant beaded bag, and a variety of sweaters and socks.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Sterling/Chapelle (November 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140270934X
• ISBN-13: 978-1402709340
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,026,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice little book, but not for beginners., May 18, 2005

By 

J. Bertram (South Lyon, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Portable Crafter: Knitting (Hardcover)

I bought this book for the cute little patterns in it. I completed baby's first hat this weekend. It was a quick knit and certainly portable. I am an avid baby sweater knitter and was excited to see that this book contains 3 pattern variations for a top down raglan. In reading the patterns I find the wording to be a bit hazy. I don't have a problem with this, but I could certainly see a less experienced knitter being frustrated. My big complaint is that the photos don't always match the pattern. The one I remember is for the basic baby sweater. The sweater in the photo has a ribbed bottom. The pattern gives instructions for a garter stitch bottom. It's a little detail, but would certainly be a big headache for someone who may not recognize stitches as readily.

Despite the little mistakes, I do really like this book. It has some cute, quick projects that wouldn't cost a fortune to complete.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars too many mistakes for such a cute book, June 20, 2007

By 

Sadierose "Sadierose" (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Portable Crafter: Knitting (Hardcover)

I agree with all of the reviewers -- this is a nice little book with lots of enticing patters, in a great portable size. But so far every single pattern I've tried has mistakes. The cabled baby sweater is the worst of the lot -- I ended up ripping back half the sweater because the author tells you to begin the sleeve cables after all the increases are done rather than at the top. (It's shown correctly in the photograph.)

After studying all of the other baby sweater patterns in order to figure it out, I realized that she simply "cut and pasted" the directions from one to the other, without double checking whether they worked. In fact, they don't actually work for any of the three patterns. There's a significant error in Row 8 that tells you to work the ribbing until the first increase. Well, that's wrong for all three patterns. You only work the ribbing for the first 4 stitches -- what is worse, one of the sweaters doesn't have any ribbing at all (it's done with seed stitch edges) so a beginning knitter would be very confused indeed.

I think someone should really have tested out each pattern separately; that would have eliminated at least the repetition of those particular mistakes. There are other issues with the patterns as well -- not so much mistakes as vague instructions or design glitches. For example, the baby sweaters work better if they're cast on in an even number of stitches, so that the ribbing comes out evenly. And it would have been nice to have been given specific instructions for increasing so that the increases slant correctly. I knew what to do, but a beginner would come out with slightly messy increases.

Other patterns have small omissions, which would be relatively easy to fix even for beginners (e.g., the towel patterns forget to tell you to work the garter stitch edge at the end.) I would have loved to give this book 5 stars for the adorable designs and the handy size of the book, but there are just too many careless mistakes. I'm especially bothered by the fact that the mistakes carry over from one pattern to the next, indicating that the patterns weren't written and tested separately. I tried contacting the publisher but they ignored my email.

That said, once you understand the errors & deal with them, the projects do come out =well and make great gifts. I couldn't recommend this book for beginners, though an experienced knitter who knew about the errors ahead of time would probably get good use out of it. Still -- there's no excuse for cutting & pasting incorrect patterns.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Portable Crafter, January 13, 2006

By 

bored "bored" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Portable Crafter: Knitting (Hardcover)

I liked the patterns in this book for the baby sweaters and baby hat so purchased it only to find out that all three of the baby sweater patterns have mistakes in the directions. It is very frustrating to start a project and then find that you have to struggle to understand the instructions. In fact, it is more like part of the instructions are missing for all of these patterns. I would not suggest this book if the projects that you wish to knit from it are any of the baby sweaters. The baby hat is a very easy patterns and turns out very cute. But a book is hardly worth purchasing when one of the five patterns that you like can be knitted easily.