Customer Reviews

Twinkle's Big City Knits: 31 Chunky-Chic Designs

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

When I heard that Wenlan Chia, the designer of Twinkle, had a knitting book coming out I was, like many, extremely excited. Now you didn't have to be a rich fashionista with access to a cool boutique to wear a Twinkle design, you can make it at home!

I finally saw the book this weekend and it is gorgeous, Potter Craft has really upped the styling of knitting books and working with a well known New York Designer no doubt helps. The first half of the book consists of model shots of each of the patterns printed on glossy paper. Color and energy ooze out of these pages. Towards the end of this section you get to find out what Chia's ideas of what a size large are....a 37" at most. OK no big deal, except she doesn't provide an extra large.

The second half of the book is the pattern section that switches over to a matte paper and flat sweater pictures. This is where it gets really confusing and infuriating. Some of the patterns are one size only (and no I'm not just talking about hats or scarves) while some go as big as a 35" and worse for some the large is a 27"! 10" of negative ease in a bulky knit?!

I know enough about knitting to resize patterns, but why should I spend 30 dollars for that honor when Chia, her pattern writer, or her technical editor were being paid to do that? My theory is that Chia didn't write the knitting patterns (she's more of a free form knitter, which brings a sense of fun to her work) and someone else (the other author whose name I can't remember)had to look through her runway samples to 'decode' the knitting. When it was too hard to resize they just went with one.

I'm giving it 3 stars because the designs are gorgeous, unfortunately they aren't going to be wearable (imagine carrying over 1.5 kilos of yarn)or knitable for most people. Maybe a revised edition will be printed with sizes for a wider audience rather than just models.

The designs are creative, and I continue to receive compliments on the sweaters I've made from this book. But the patterns are full of errors and unclear instructions, most of which are not included in the errata sheet. Just thumbing through the book before I made anything, I could tell that there were major mistakes in the yardage requirements. And once I began knitting, I became quite frustrated. I am used to encountering some mistakes in knitting patterns and books, but this book seems not to have been edited or checked by the author at all. I am amazed at the number of errors throughout. Since I do like many of the designs, I will probably knit more, though I am thoroughly disappointed in the quality of the patterns.

So, I went to an event at Anthropologie tonight and Wenlan was there. I asked her what was up with the impossible pattern sizing. Because the patterns are knit on HUGE needles with big yarn, it stretches like mad. Also, there is a bit of negative ease in there to make the garment hug the body.

Basically, what it comes down to is that those measurements are the KNITTED measurements, not the "will fit" measurements. There's a really important distinction. I'm no tiny girl...i've got a 41" bust...and I just bought this book after several months ago giving a copy someone gave me for free away.

Also, with the crazy large gauge you'd get for any of these patterns, it will take hardly any time at all to re-knit something if you need a size larger or smaller.

I just finished my fourth attempted project out of this book and was hard pressed not to throw it out of the car. The pictures of the finished garments might be beautiful, but the patterns are riddled with mistakes, require a serious combination of both knitting skill and intuition to compensate for their omissions and, even when completed successfully, often turn out to be incredibly ugly. What was supposed to be a winter hat wound up looking more like a fishnet shower cap with overly long ear flaps. The only thing I can think to do with the book now is to use it as a basis for creating my own patterns. Even in this capacity, however, it will require serious effort and time to overcome its failures and inadequacies. In short, I hate this book.

(My boyfriend just came upon me typing and asked whether writing the review was sufficiently cathartic. Frankly, I don't think so, but it's a start.)

Word of warning: do not buy the twinkle "cruise" yarn- it's a silk/cotton blend. I wanted to try it and started one of the sweaters, despite the fact that the patterns call for 4 strands held together. 4 strands of very slippery, easily knotted horrid yarn. I tried everything- i put the 4 balls of yarn in seperate bags, in jars, in the 4 corners of the room. It just ends up being a huge tangled mess no matter how hard I try. I have had to make several cuts because it's just become impossibly tangled, I can't make it more than a row or two without having to stop to untangle and it's really easy to drop one of the four strands at any point, especially during increases, decreases, etc. I really want to finish this sweater, but it's taking me forever because I can't take it with me anywhere and i spend so much time working on knots. I like the patterns but stay away from the suggested yarn.

While the patterns in this book look great in the photos and could look great knitted up, be warned that there are ALOT of mistakes in the patterns. There are corrections in a 3 page pdf at: [...]. Also the design of the book makes it slightly difficult to understand things like the stitch guage (81/2 stitches to 5 inches...) and what yarns to buy. Read that section very carefully and make sure to check the errata before purchasing as one pattern calls for 8750 yards which would make up about 10 of the pattern!

I bought this book because I really like fashion and I can (barely) fit into some of the sizes that author lists in this book. However, by appearances, the author must have targeted 10% of the population that have a 24-28 chest size. And, one must wonder of the 10% of the population who fall into that category, how many of them actually knit? Come on, the average American female isn't a 24-28 chest size!!! With that said, I also believe that the author also targeted this book for clairvoyant knitters because the instructions are vague, the details are missing and she assumes that you know when she asks you to M1, you know which type she's referring to. And, when you decrease, you know which type of decrease is required. While I'm not a beginner knitter, I like explicit, detailed directions. This book lacks all of that. This is a definite PASS for anyone who is thinking of actually knitting from this book. You will end up frustrated and disappointed. Don't waste your money.

even with 10 pages of corrections printed out, i still found MORE things wrong in these patterns. i began several patterns and none of them were totally correct! i am sad that i waisted my money on this book.

I've been waiting for a book like this to come out for a long time! Finally, cute, chic designs fresh off the runway for me to make! Ms. Chia delivers pattern after beautiful pattern in this heavy book. I've already made three projects from it: the Balthazar Vest, Aspen Hat, and Best Friend Cardigan - with a few more projects in the works. I understand what the other reviewers are saying about the limited sizes, however, I'm a petite woman so I've had no problems with the sizing whatsoever (no offense, this is a review for me only). I would have given this book a 5-star rating if not for the plethora of errors throughout the patterns. I strongly urge purchasers of this book to check the Classic Elite website for errata updates.

I am one of the stereotypical NYC knitters for whom this book is supposedly written, and I find this book to be terrible - both because the aforementioned size issues (there are actually patterns in here for bust size 27) and because it is rife with mistakes. If this style of knits interests you, check out Teva Durham's Loop-d-Loop instead. It is a much better and more inspired book.