Monday, November 27, 2006

speed knitting-a fo and a review

Woops. I started a blog and then didn't make any entries. :) But all that is about to change. First, a book review of Speed Knitting: 24 Quick and Easy Projects by Kris Percival

In general, I'm with a lot of other knitter when I say I'm not a big fan of books that include quick and easy in the title. Everything, including knitting does not have to be fast and instant gratification. With that said though, sometimes it is nice to have a quick knit for a boost while working on a large project, or try out a new technique on something small. I really didn't expect to like this book when I picked it up in the book store, but I was pleasantly surprised. I've only been knitting about a year, so I sort of consider myself an advanced beginner (I've already done a shawl, and several scarves, etc, etc.) and this book is good for beginners who want to branch out to knitting something other than scarves. I would definitely reccomend this book, the patterns are clear and well photographed, and I found 5 out of 24 that I would actually knit.
The book is divided into 5 sections: 1-getting started which is pretty much your usual discussion of needles and yarn type you find in some knitting pattern books. Section 2- Accessories which includes a 3 scarves, 2 hats, a belt, a messenger bag, wrist warmers and mittens. Section 3 includes a poncho, a capelet, a shrug, a shawl, a vest, a ballet sweater, and summer dress, a mens sweater, and a halter top. Section 4- blanket, pillow cover, baby shower set, dog sweater, cat mat, small childs tank top, baby blanket, and toddler tank dress. These projects are fairly diverse giving one a lot of different options for a quick project. I chose to do the wrist warmers. I learned dpns and magic loop on this project. Also, I think there is an error, it says to pick up 4 stitches for the thumbhole but I picked up six, 4 made too many gaps. A pic:

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