Stitch 'n Bitch Nation (Paperback)

by Debbie Stoller (Author)
Key Phrases: holder sts, rep dec row, yoke chart, New York, Special Skill, Knit It My Way (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
With its spiffy prose and no-fail instructions, Stoller's 2003 Stitch 'n Bitch made it doable—easy, even—for gals (and the occasional guy) to knit up a cool bag or a happening scarf in a few nights. The book's sequel is a bit like the follow-up to many great movies: it draws you in, but doesn't pack anywhere near the punch of the first one, probably because the first one set the bar so high. Still, Stoller should have no problem packing the theaters, as it were: readers who've mastered most of the lessons in Stitch 'n Bitch will flock to it. Its opening section explains the complicated but worthwhile process of changing a pattern to suit your tastes: shortening sleeves, changing necklines, using a heavier or lighter yarn to create different effects, etc. Stoller uses her signature sharp, matter-of-fact voice to demystify these potentially confusing processes. After these lessons, the book takes a 180, launching into a smorgasbord of patterns for knitted designs ranging from the beautiful (sweaters like the Spiderweb Capelet and Clover Lace Wrap) to the hackneyed (a Two for Tea teapot cozy or been-there-done-that Roller Girl Legwarmers). Vignettes covering Stitch 'n Bitch knitting clubs from Arlington, Va., to Seattle, Wash., add a community feel, and the photos of models sporting knitwear superimposed on quintessential American backgrounds (Mount Rushmore, an urban Chinatown) add to the book's "knitting for the masses" spirit.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
A sequel to the best-seller Stitch 'n Bitch (2003), this volume is just as entertaining and twice as useful as its predecessor. For entertainment value, Stoller takes readers on a whirlwind tour across the country, visiting women (mostly) who have set up their own stitch-'n-bitch groups and detailing just what they're bitching about. Stoller also provides kicky patterns that include everything from outfits for kids through outfits for dogs and on to purses, toys, foot warmers, and more. But the reason this book is so valuable is that Stoller takes readers by the hand and shows them how a pattern is written and how to adjust patterns to an individual's own body measurements. This vital aspect of knitting tends to be either mysterious or off-putting because it involves the m word--math. But Stoller speaks very clearly and peppers her explanations with humor. By the time she's finished, writing one's own patterns seems like a real possibility. Inadequately reproduced photographs in the galley copy made the pictures difficult to see, but what comes through the gray haze looks very cute. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company; illustrated edition edition (November 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761135901
• ISBN-13: 978-0761135906
• Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 9 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #135,615 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of great patterns, November 20, 2004

By	anon-new-yorker (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

There are many appealing patterns in here, from a mock-cable scarf to a gorgeous felted bag customized with one's initial to an aqua kimono jacket. My only gripe is that I think it would have been helpful to rate the patterns by difficulty. For this beginning knitter, some projects look like they would be simple but then require more advanced skills (such as the grafting in the felted slippers project). It definitely helps to have the first Stitch N Bitch book to refer to, in those cases.

The beginning section about the spread of the Stitch N Bitch phenomenon and about customizing one's own patterns is very enjoyable to read because the author has an engaging, enthusiastic writing style. I admire her for starting and capitalizing on a trend that is providing hours of creativity and enjoyment for many new knitters... and indeed ceasing to be a trend, instead becoming part of our popular culture and a link to the past.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun, Hip book, but it has its problems., January 28, 2005

By	Lynn B. "alceria" (Roseville, MI USA) - See all my reviews

I recieved this book as a birthday gift less than a month ago. I've been knitting for a couple years, but I'm self-taught and usually just make things up myself rather than following a pattern. But I decided this year I would take some classes and start trying to be a more technically proficient knitter.

First let me say what I like about the book:

-Good selection of fun, interesting patterns.
-Nice photos and page layouts.
-Enough non-clothing patterns to keep me interested. (I hate wearing sweaters and have no interest in knitting them, thankyouverymuch!)

But I have some definate gripes about this book, and here they are:

-The patterns I have tried are not written very clearly, or explained well. Now, if I alone had trouble with them, I'd be more forgiving, because I don't have much experience with pattern reading. But at the class I'm taking, the teacher has been stumped several times and had to figure things out by trial and error. And my instructor is a knitting goddess, she *knows* what she is doing! So the fact that she in confused by these patterns tells me something is wrong here. Things could be explained a LOT better, but it seemed like it was more important to keep the page count down.

-There are a LOT of errors in this book. As I read reviews and look at messages boards discussing knitting, it seems like it's just a given that most of the books out there will have a lot of errata that need to be corrected by finding the book's website and downloading corrections. It's not just this book, and I find the trend alarming and I think better editing needs to be done in all these books. I mean comeon people, test these patterns out before you publish them! I had a dreadful time with the "hurry up spring" armwarmers until I discovered there were errors in the pattern. I can't believe how many errors slipped through the cracks. I suggest going to the knithappens.com website and printing up ALL the corrections and tucking them into your book before you start anything. It will save you a LOT of grief, trust me.

-Like I said, I've had this book for less than a month, and I am very *gentle* on books, most of mine look brand new. But this book is already falling apart. The spine has cracked and a big chunk of the book has detached from the spine, so I expect that any day now the pages will all start falling out. What is up with that? I have NEVER had a paperback book do that, and I'm not being rough with this book or folding the pages back or anything. In fact, I've been making copies of the pages and working off of copies most of the time because it's easier to keep a piece of paper with me than to lug around a book to class. So I really don't understand why it's falling apart already.

As a side note, I don't have the first SnB book, but I did thumb through it quite a bit at the bookstore the other evening and there are my impressions: It's a lot more heavy on instruction, probably one of the best books I've seen as far as instruction, but I didn't read any individual how-to excerpts so I'm not sure how well things are explained. The pages feel like recycled paper and there is a noticeable lack of quality color photos showing the projects, which really disappointed me. It also seems like there's a lot less patterns than SnB Nation, and the patterns seem less interesting. I just thought I would note this since it seems like a lot of the reviews say the first book is better.

Finally, one pleasant surprise was discovering that the author and oftentimes, the original designers of the SnB Nation patterns, read and respond to posts on the SnB website (knithappens.com). If you have a question about a poorly explained direction in a pattern, you can often get an answer fairly quickly from the pattern's creator or from Debbie herself. That's really cool. I just hope in future books things are a little easier to figure out on your own!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars errors, but very cute, December 14, 2004

By	somewheres (Maine) - See all my reviews

I'm knitting my first sweater, "jesse's flames" from this book and found a "duh" mistake in the pattern. I assume that when she says to change to the main color, she really means contrasing color 2, to match the stripe in front with that in back.
There are more mistakes, like in the razor's edge poncho lace pattern, which was completely rewritten. There were some problems with her first books, but mostly stuff that can be worked out with a change of a word or two, but most of the corrections in this book are long. fix the errors, and you have a five star book. And check out her website before starting in on any of that patterns.