How-To

Review: Natural Dyeing

by --Deb 03.18.2010
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So many valuable nuggets of information are lost every day. (Did you know the first, best, true-red dye came from insects?) There are so many things my grandmother, great-grandmother, and so on knew to do but that have been forgotten by my generation, and this book is one way to claim some of them back again. With this book, if I had to, I could create my own green dye, or blue, or yellow, or red, without having to depend on anyone else to mix a batch of chemicals.

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Review: Knitwear Design Workshop

by --Deb 03.12.2010
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If you’re interested sweater design, and want to understand everything, you need to look at this book. It’s amazing. I have other design books in my library, GOOD ones written by Maggie Righetti, Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, Ann Budd, Cheryl Brunette, Debbie Bliss, just to name a few … but this one stands on its own.

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Review: Knitting Daily Seasons 3 & 4

by --Deb 03.02.2010
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Having just watched all eleven and a half hours, I can tell you without reservation that these DVDs are interesting, useful, and chock-full of great information. I don’t have access to these on television, so I hadn’t had a chance to see them before.

Well, they did not disappoint.

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Review: Aran Sweater Design

by --Deb 02.17.2010
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I’ve practically lived and breathed this book for the last couple of weeks and finally realized I had to write a review of this book to tell you why.

I had decided to tear out an aran I knitted in 2006 and reuse the yarn, and I spent so much time looking for the right pattern when I decided that I should just design my own … and this was the book I immediately reached for.

Why? This book tells you simply everything you need to know to put together an Aran sweater.

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Review: Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques

by --Deb 01.24.2010
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Entrelac. Stranded. Intarsia. Stripes. Two-sided. There are so many ways to play with color while you knit, but… there are so MANY ways to add different colors to your knitting. What’s a knitter to do?

Run, don’t walk, to find a copy of this book.

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Review: Two Videos

by --Deb 12.20.2009
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Two great instructional videos from Interweave Press. Curious about Cables or Fair Isle knitting? You have to check these out!

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Review: Stitch ‘n Bitch

by --Deb 09.22.2009
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This is one of the best-learn-to-knit books around. Great illustrations of what the stitches look like and what to do with them. Clear explanations that TELL you what to do with them. It covers all the basics and does it in a way that makes it easy to learn. If you’re a beginner, this book will answer almost all of your questions.

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Review: Seven Things that Can Make or Break a Sweater

by --Deb 08.13.2009
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The object of this book is to focus on the seven, specific things that can make a huge difference to the quality of your sweater. They’re not mind-blowing things. No secret tricks that only the author knows. No Ninja mind-tricks that force your knitting to behave. They’re not even fancy or complicated things.

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Review: Spinning in the Old Way

by --Deb 08.06.2009
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Almost every other spinning book I have tends to be broad in nature. They discuss everything from where the fiber comes from, to how it’s prepared, to the parts of a spinning wheel, to drafting, to finishing … everything. It’s all in there, like that old tomato sauce commercial.

This book (if you’ll forgive me for referring to the pair of them as if they were one and the same) is refreshing because it focuses on making yarn with one tool only–the high-whorl spindle.

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Review: New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One

by --Deb 07.28.2009
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Suppose you wanted to take a fresh look at sock knitting, and come up with a new approach to a basic shape that has been around for centuries. The human foot hasn’t changed all that much, and knitting itself has been more or less consistent for a couple centuries now. So, barring new techniques like Magic Loop and short-row heels … how much “new” can there be?

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Review: Living the Country Lifestyle for Dummies

by --Deb 04.09.2009
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A lot of knitters and spinners do. We cherish the thought of growing our own vegetables, canning our own preserves, and surrounding ourselves with homemade quilts and blankets lovingly made by our own hands. All while (naturally) we sit and knit as we gaze from the porch at our happy flock of sheep, listening to our chickens clucking to themselves.

Or maybe we just dream of such a lifestyle and want to read about it without having to live it. Or maybe we really do want to live it, but realize how much work is involved and don’t know where to start.

Well, this book is a good place.

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Review: The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook

by --Deb 02.23.2009
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This is one of those kinds of books that almost makes you rethink everything you know about knitting.

It was written in 2002, at just about the time that sock knitting started becoming popular, and spinning hadn’t taken off. Seven years ago, most people who knit automatically headed to their local yarn shop or craft store to buy yarn–the concept of making their own was still new. (New to our generation, that is. Obviously, people have been spinning their own yarn for quite some time.)

Enter Lynne Vogel.

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Review: Knitting in Plain English (1986)

by --Deb 02.15.2009
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It’s a 20-year old book, and times have changed … but, I beg you, don’t let its lack of hipness keep you from at least taking a look at this book. The current crop of learn-to-knit books are edgier, hipper, trendier, and there’s nothing wrong with that or with them, but this book was miles ahead of the dry, textbook-like books I’d seen before. And if it weren’t for this book, I would never have become hooked on knitting. That should tell you a lot, right there.

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Review: The Intentional Spinner

by --Deb 02.10.2009
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The subtitle is “A Holistic Approach to Making Yarn.” Now, I don’t claim to be an expert in holistic anything, so I’m not entirely sure where that came from, but what I can tell you is that this is one of the most in-depth books on spinning I’ve seen in a long time.

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