Knitters Inc. Message Board

Hi!

I'm not quite sure how this is going to work - Tim is probably going to give us an update tomorrow, but I went ahead and created this for the time being to see how it works... It seems to have added *all* our books, rather than a selection, but I guess that may change.

Hi, thanks for the invite. I've just switched from a Windows PC to an iMac with the result that I'm using Safari to browse. It seems Safari and LibraryThing don't play well together because I couldn't send you (Bo Peep) a message yesterday. Lets hope this comment goes through.
Cheers!
Mrs. R.

the adding all the books is skewing the irish and british crime as well, with us two on it there are knitting books showing up as well!

Fun.

I love how our most commonly shared books start with Ms. Mcphee, a few other popular titles, and then Harry Potter! What fun!

Hey. I started weighting the numbers, so Harry Potter gets handicapped. Sure you guys have a lot of them, but not a disproportionate amount...

Thank you Tim, that takes a bit of my fear of the large libraries away. Not that there's anything wrong with them :-) but it was skewing the 'top shared books' rather a lot.

This is just the motivation I need to get the rest of my books uploaded!

I just bought Knitting Rules! a couple of days ago, and have been reading it non-stop. Are there any other good, prose-y knitting books out there? I liked some of the stuff in Knit Lit, but not enough to buy the sequels.

Hi everyone,
I like the weighted shared books, thanks Tim!
By the way, I've started a quilters group, so if you are interested please come and join me there too.

This is neat! I love that we have a knitting resource focused on books!

Oh, this is excellent. I've been knitting since February (but quite obsessively), and knitting books are the fastest growth section of my library.

Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is by far my favorite individual book. I started with Debbie Stoller's Stitch and Bitch, which has fair instructions and a great sense of humor, but (for a raw novice) relatively cryptic illustrations.

While a couple of my knitting books were purchased new with consumption aforethought, most of them were targets of opportunity at used bookstores, and one of them was actually won in a contest on the "It's a Purl, Man" podcast. (Maran Illustrated Knitting and Crocheting).

I have found LibraryThing has actually revived my interest in knitting. I was an avid knitter but now I don't have time. In putting all our books on I have got all the knitting books out and got itchy fingers and picked up the needles again.

I have to say LT has increased my interest in acquiring old knitting books - from 1950s pattern leaflets to Wild Knitting - and in finding new-to-me overseas titles. I've been browsing the US-based libraries, drooling occasionally. ;-) I'm quite intrigued by Mason-Dixon Knitting which turns up in the 'most often tagged knitting' list - I saw it on shelves in Texas earlier this year but didn't get the chance to browse - is it something worth buying sight-unseen?

kukkurovaca, you must live near good used bookstores. A knitting friend and I were just commenting on how hard it was to find knitting books in used bookstores. See, I figure, knitting has been a craze for a few years now, so there must have been some people who tried it because they heard it was hot, bought a few books, but didn't care for it. So their books should be in used bookstores, right? Well, not in my area. :) Either my fellow knitters get to the used bookstores faster than I do, or people here stick with knitting once they learn it!

I don't have any Knitting Books (ok only one), but i'm very interested in starting to buy them. Specially since seeing a friends copy of Vogue knitting : the ultimate knitting book.
What has so far restrained me from doing so is the fact that i can't read recipes...
Can anyone point out to me a good book that teaches that?
Also i'm going to London in September and i hope to scour the Used-Bookstores in there looking for old used knitting books :)

A good prose book (a series of essays) is The Knitter's Gift.

On Mason-Dixon Knitting: I like it. I rarely follw patterns exactly but it has some good ideas for places to start -- and my guess is that it would also work for people looking for patterns to expand past scarves.

Silvernfire, I live in Berkeley, which has an obscene number of good used bookstores, although I've been surprised to find a lot of them at one of the newest and most mediocre local used bookstores (one of the half price chain).

Though one of the tricky things about knitting books is that they're seldom organized well at non-specialty bookstores, and I've often had to struggle to even find the appropriate section of the store.

Hello fellow knitters!

I'm very glad to see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee doing so well in the list of popular books. I just got her most recent one and I'm using her sock recipe to attempt my first knitted sock.

Are you posting the leaflets to your LT list? I haven't done that yet.

Tricoteuse: I recently did the same thing. It's a really great, comprehensive sock recipe. It was the thing that finally pushed me past the, "I don't get what you mean me to do with this heel, therefore I won't knit your pattern" phase with socks.

However, while I finished one pair, I recently encountered a problem with the second. A problem which involved breaking two supposedly flexible needles in the course of a single week.

Grrr..

Leaflets - I've only added a couple (Noro Knits for instance, and Debbie Bliss's Book Seven, and a Rowan magazine). I haven't had the patience to go through the rest yet! But I don't see why they shouldn't be added - it's a good way of keeping track.

I found treasure in a charity shop today (does this translate? Like Goodwill...). 3 Christina Probert Knitting In Vogue titles, a very 1980s Annabel Fox book, and The Art of Knitting, in hardback, for £12 ($22). (I don't know if the forum can cope with currency signs, so let's see...)

Damn, I wish we could do threaded messages! I'm always on the lookout for hot designers...I've had good luck finding new patterns I like by looking up the designers of things I've knitted (or coveted.)

I've been on a Stefanie Japel kick. I'm working on one of her knitty designs (cathode) and I love the Bombshell pattern she wrote for Big Girl Knits. I'd be all over that if my mom wasn't making it right now!

I also like Mari Lynn Patrick's wacky stuff for Vogue Knitting, though her largest size always seems to be just a few inches too small for me. How gorgeous is that sheath in the summer issue? She also did a really nice crochet sundress pattern for Interweave Knits (it's online at http://www.interweavecrochet.com/projects/2006/tuscany_dress.pdf).

For accessories, I love Nicky Epstein, mostly because I share her crazy old lady aesthetic. Have you seen the swan purse from Fabulous Felted Bags? It's like Bjork meets Dr. Seuss meets the cat lady at the end of the street. I would totally make it/wear it all the time.

I'm always disappointed when I pick up a promising looking book (or magazine--*cough cough*, Knitters) and find one or two nice things in a sea of ugly, boxy, out of style looking crap. Who are your favorite knitting pattern designers? Who should I be looking out for?

Oh, and I always strike out at used bookstores too...I've been searching them for Barbara G. Walker's knitting books for ages. Did you guys know that, besides being an amazing knitting cataloger/writer she's also a scholar of feminist mythology? My partner and I had this whole debate about how the author of The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets couldn't be the same person who wrote A Treasury of Knitting Patterns--but nope, it's true. I imagine her as this amazingly wise grandmother figure, who would make you a cup of tea and let you help wind her hand-dyed skeins into balls while she told you stories about the Great Mother...but enough of my fantasies.

One secondhand find I have made is Louisa Calder's Creative Crochet, which I highly recommend snapping up if you see it. Louisa Calder is (was?) the wife of sculptor Alexander Calder, and the book is full of very geometric artsy pieces, all done in super-simple crochet stitches and made with (of course) garish 70s acrylic colors. Awesome stuff--crazy pointed elf hats, wacky embellished tea cosies, conical handbags with leather straps, and even hooked rugs done in Alexander's designs. Really cool stuff.

Lucky you BoPeep. I have two Knitting Vogues from when they came out but I haven't got Number 1. I was surprised to see you mention The art of knitting but the one I was thinking of is not yours but an Australian work.

Liza

I know there is at least one dedicated lace knitter in this group so far. I've not done much lace, and I certainly have yet to do a shawl (though I have the materials!), but I'm becoming more and more drawn to lace pieces. I would like to buy a couple of books to start out with that have a range of patterns (in terms of difficulty... I'd prefer mostly lace weight), and maybe include stoles, shawls and scarves. I'm thinking what I'd like most is a book of patterns, and a book of inspiration (stitch dictionary-type). Anyone have any suggestions?

Also, thanks to killearnan for the suggestion of Knitter's Gift. I have it on my short list.

The lace book I'm actually finding the most helpful (as a beginner to lace, although an advanced beginner/intermediate knitter) is Lavish Lace as it starts out with simpler patterns and works towards the more complex, as well as having good explanations of blocking and other lace-related skills.

I heard a rumor that Interweave Press will be putting out a book called Lace Style, similar to their Scarf Style and Wrap Style books. I love both of those, so I'm looking forward to this one.

Lace books, am I the guilty one here? grin I don't only knit lace, but I do love knitting lace!

Some suggestions for good lace books that _I_ have:
Gathering of Lace by Meg Swansen which has patterns from easy on up to complicated, and tips and ideas enough to keep you busy for years. Vests, scarves, shawls, hats, sweaters are all in this book;
Knitting Lace, A Workshop with Patterns and Projects by Susanna E. Lewis (while you are digging through used books stores!) The author reconstructed a 19th century sampler in the Brooklyn Museum, and learned more about lace than she ever expected. Just a couple of patterns in it, but WOW! enough to get the brain cells to churn;
Myrna Stahman wrote Stahman's Shawls and Scarves which is an exploration of top down Faroese Shawls (they stay on when you wear them without pinning) and scarves with different lace patterns from the simple to the complex. She uses different weights of yarn too. Lots of great tips.

Does this get you started? The great Barbara G. Walker has some wonderful lace patterns in her 4 Treasuries, so do the Mon Tricot Stitch Dictionaries, the Arco Guides (they change the name each edition, so it is harder to suggest one).

Feel free to browse my books and ask for an opinion!

I'm not a dedicated lace knitter, quite, but it's definitely my favorite thing to knit, followed by cables. Someday, I will finish the promised gift I've been working on for what feels like forever, and get back to the projects I enjoy, like the Great American Aran Afghan. (Finished one square, and then my best friend got engaged...)

Wow! Someone else who loves to knit lace. I too have the A Gathering of Lace book and I'm working on the Frost Flowers & Leaves shawl pattern. I bought lace alpaca yarn from http://www.knitpicks.com at a fraction of the price of what it would have cost from a local yarn shop and it's excellent yarn. I had to buy my first pair of reading glasses for this, with such thin yarn, but I love it. What a challenge!

I recently picked up a new knitting book that I've come to absolutely adore: Knitting Nature. There's some incredible detail and just really different designs that I don't see in a lot of the knitting books coming out these days. Some patterns are more complex than others, but they're so gorgeous. Well worth taking a look at if you see the book around.

Thanks for the review of Knitting Nature! You are the second person I know who loves it! I guess it goes on my "to buy" list!

BoPeep, If you want to decide whether to buy Mason Dixon Knitting then take a look at this Mason-Dixon Knit KAL (knitalong) page:
http://masondixonkal.blogspot.com/
There are plenty of pictures of the projects that are in the book.

I just picked up a basic book at A.C.Moore for $5.00. It's called The Cool Girl's Knitting Book (or something like that). It's good for basic patterns, I wish it had more photos of the items though.

I buy a lot of my knitting books online at
www.edwardrhamilton.com

It does seem that the prices are not as low as some of the other crafty books right now but I think it's because of the knitting craze. Otherwise, places like TJ Maxx, Tuesday Morning, or other similar places, you can get some really good buys.

I have a book to recommend. Knitting for Peace.