Customer Reviews

The Portable Crafter: Knitting

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I'm a new self taught knitter and I "love" this little book. The baby hat is the first thing I knitted and the first real success that I could give as a gift. I've done the 2 fast fluffy hats with the bulky yarn I had on hand and they are great! I'm working on the chevron hat now and I can't believe how beautiful the pattern looks. Yes, I'm very new at this stuff and the dpn's are a bit clumsy for me but at last I'm having success. It seems that Leanne Bennett and I are on the same page. I wish she would do another book. CV

This little book is a fabulous edition to any collection of knitting patterns. The projects are not just small, but lovely, and even useful. The "Simple Elegant Scarf" is my favorite scarf, and I wear it every chilly day. The book also has great gift ideas. I've already made two of the Towels for gifts, and the recipients loved them. I highly recommend this book.

If you're a knitter that's on the "go" a lot, this is a convenient, pocket-sized book to have with you. It has a lot of nice, smaller projects to make, that would be very portable without taking up a lot of space or dragging a lot of extra paraphenalia around with you. I would have liked to see a little more variety for the projects, however.

This is a handy book for any knitter to throw in your bag to go to knitting groups or travel. It has a nice range of patterns, complete instructions, and photos to show what your project could look like. Good for any knitter's collection.