Customer Reviews

The Sock Knitter's Workshop: Everything Knitters Need to Knit Socks Beautifully

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's the most complete, surprising, inspirational, and innovative sock book I've ever seen. It's not a book of patterns, although there are a few. It's full of new and interesting ways to cast on and off, heels I've never seen, wonderful edgings for socks, toe-up or down, and much, much more, with good photos to help along.

The most interesting aspect of the book is the fact that it's not just a list of techniques but a way of changing your thinking about knitting socks. I will be reading every word of this book.

If you're looking to learn lots of new stuff, this book is it. Even for a longtime sock knitter, like me, it's full of truly novel tidbits and new ways of trying things. You'll grab your needles and yarn and start knitting. It's that good.

I have a lot of sock pattern books and ultimately found them to be limited. After learning the construction of a sock, you can plug in your own pattern for the leg and instep and make your own design. Given that, I thought I was done with learning new things about socks. Boy, was I was wrong. This book is a blast and so well laid out. If you're looking for one sock book, THIS IS IT!

(No affiliation, just an avid sock knitter who is really impressed.)

At first glance, this book looked terrific to me! So many techniques, nice photos, good advice on sock fit. I decided to try every technique, starting with the cast-ons at the beginning, and working my way through. I wanted to force myself to learn new techniques, instead of knitting socks the same way all the time. Once I began this project, I started to see the problems in the book, which I believe have to do with poor translation. Although I am an experienced knitter, and sock knitter, I have been left scratching my head many times, and I am only at the start of the chapter on heels. Many times I puzzled, "Just WHAT are they trying to say here?" What a disappointment! And it should be a disappointment to the authors and publishers also. It looks to me like the translators were not knitters. A knitter would have known when an instruction did not make sense. I will struggle along with this book, but a beginning sock knitter would probably never make socks again!

I had great expectations for this book and I was not disappointed at all. If fact, the book had much more than was expected. I wanted a translation of some of the German heels and toes, this book indeed gave a very good range of different toes and heels. Unexpected surprises included: cuffs, casting on,Toe-Up Socks, and spickels (quite often a part of the gusset). In providing these items, it also did it in extremely clear pictorial and written facts. I doubt that any books from anywhere else has given such a good choice of adding different heels and toes to your socks as you go. There is nothing better than to have these two areas covered with such great description. Another nice addition are the 15 patterns included, which range from easy to more difficult patterns. The last surprise is the inclusion of charts written for socks specifically that use inches, not centimeters, yarn weight specific charts to aide in getting your socks going without ripping out. I am looking forward to another of these books coming out in November, 2010 by Stephanie van der Linden named "Knitting Socks Around the World: ...". "Socken aus aller Welt" was a book in German written by Stephanie will be closely followed by her book, "Knitting Socks Around the World: ..." in English. It is truly a delight that Stephanie is translating her books into English. This book is fascinating, well structured, and will encourage me to incorporate some of these ideas into my future designing. Excellent value.

I am relieved to know the instructions of the book can be difficult to decipher even for some English native speakers as well after reading a review; for me it was full of attractive techniques that I could never materialise. I did not understand this book very well and I thought it must be only because of my poor comprehension in English, even though I understood Wendy's and Charlene's sock books with no problem. A reader points out about poor translation but I wonder if the translation is to be blamed for all this... as there seems to be lack of explanations that is more to do with the original texts, including the numbering and re-numbering of the needles. Patterns in the latter half also are like little personal notes for the authors. I should have noticed quite a few five star comments are written by those who actually have not started the project referring to this book.
It is a bit too advanced to work things out for my level of English and knitting knowledge, but could be good enough for those who knows techniques already and only need a hint.

This book is filled with all kinds of new ideas (new if you are in the states and haven't seen these in foreign patterns yet) and techniques. The variations are fantastic and the formulas work out very well. However...I have had some problems trying to figure out the wording. I began a sock pattern in the back of the book and tried to use the show-row heel with round shaping. If I hadn't already had some knitting and sock knitting experience, I never could have figured out this particular sock. This book is definitely NOT for beginners. Beginners should start with some very easy sock patterns and work into this book. This book is great if you are attempting to design your own socks, which is what I had planned to use it for. I gave it 3 stars because it is a fairly good attempt at giving designer's license to experiment a good sock formulas, but needs to be better organized and explained, with MANY MORE PICTURES to make it beginner friendly.

I've been a sock knitter for 10 years, and rarely use a pattern. I prefer to use my own gauge to construct socks to match the needs of the wearer. For years I've been assembling a collection of heels, toes, cuffs, cast ons, bind offs, and styles to fit the unique people I knit for. No two people will have the same kind of feet. There are so many variations: fat ankles, thin ankles, wide feet, narrow feet, wide heels, pointy heels, long toes, flat toes, wide toes, high arches, fallen arches, etc. Not to mention the preferences of different sock wearers: some like snug socks, some like bulky, some want socks to fit in dress shoes, some want bed socks or over-socks. An as-is pattern will almost always require adjustment to make the very best fitting sock possible. During this time, I've also read (using google translate) my favorite German sock knitting blogs, wishing I had an understanding of their unique techniques and wishing I could add some of these unique heels, toes, stitches, and cast on and off to my repetoire.. This book is the answer to that wish. The Sock Knitters Workshop is chock full of well-known German sock techniques, previously unknown to the average American sock knitter. Because these techniques aren't intuitive, they do take some re-thinking and readjustment of our thinking as knitters. As a fan of Elizabeth Zimmermann - another thinking (and German-influenced) knitter - I see similarities between the authors' style and Zimmermann's design style. The authors provide components which we can use to sculpt the best fitting sock. They also explain how each of these components (for example heels) fit the variety of feet that are out there. To the blind follower (as EZ said) these patterns and techniques are not necessarily intuitive. You might have to really apply yourself, but when the light bulb goes on you'll be delighted with the results. I am so very pleased with this book and I took my copy to the copy shop to have the binding removed and replaced with a spiral binding. This allows the book to lay flat while I follow the pattern. I'm thrilled with the book. It does take concentration to use - the knitter has to keep her wits about him/her - but it's worth it.

This book has a lot of different styles of socks, discusses sock heels, how to customize the fit for your foot, and several patterns for various types of yarn and designs. I wish they gave more complete directions for the different sock designs in the second half of the book. The authors are experienced knitters who write clearly, and in the first half of the book they discuss typical problems a knitter may encounter while making socks. This is a good book for a knitter who wants to explore sock knitting beyond the basics.

Even though I didn't think I needed another sock book, I did purchase this one because of all the great information in it. It is almost as if this one book has everything I need instead of using several other books that I might have for sock techniques. The directions are clear and the pictures are very helpful. I feel like I will now be able to try techniques that I might not have before and have more fun knitting socks.

This book says that it is "everything knitters need to knit socks beautifully," and I must admit, it's pretty thorough.

There is a chapter for cuffs, a chapter for heels, for toes. Each gets covered in great detail, with plenty of variations to play with. The book works almost like a mix-and-match guide. You can choose the cast-on you like best, pair it with your preferred heel, and close with the toe you like best. Each variation comes with guidance like, "Good for medium heel with medium instep," which is useful to know, and something you don't usually see in sock books. Usually, you just take your chances, without knowing ahead of time what features will make yoru socks fit best.

There is a distinct bias toward traditional socks-knit cuff-down, on DPNs. All of the detail for toe-up socks or for using other knitting needles is all in the "Other Sock Knitting Techniques" chapter. (The pages in that chapter, oddly enough, have page headers that say "Socks Knit from the Toe-Up," which could make it harder to find the instructions for, say, the Magic Loop technique if you weren't sure where it was.)

The book sums up with a collection of patterns and then some extra tips, like how to convert a flat sock pattern into a circular one. Not to mention sizing charts for different size feet and different weight yarns.

It's a magazine-sized book, with lots and lots of illustrations-crisp photos of all the techniques described in the book. It has a complete Table of Contents and a full Index (with the major headings in bold-face, making it particularly easy to scan).

I already knit socks, but need a guide/reference book for those difficult moments in some patterns where you just don't know what they are talking about and have to look it up in a reference book where there are pictures and step by step instructions. This is one of those books. It has helped me several times already to decipher "translate" poorly written patterns. I would recommend it to both beginners and experts for different reasons.