Vogue Knitting Knitopedia: The Ultimate A to Z for Knitters

Another newish fiber arts book from the library: Vogue Knitting Knitopedia: the Ultimate A to Z for Knitters.

This is genuinely an encyclopedia in its layout: the articles on each topic are in alphabetical order. I’m a reference librarian, so I know that encyclopedias have their place, subject encyclopedias included, but this particular one isn’t particularly useful to me. If I didn’t have the Internet, I expect I would find this a useful reference, and make no mistake, this is a reference work. It doesn’t read smoothly from the beginning to the end: Magic Loop is followed by Make One is followed by Making Up (See Finishing Techniques).

The information in the book is good, though the parts about currently well-known websites will be dated in less than a decade.

All in all, I doubt I’ll be using this, but there are three categories of potential purchasers I would recommend it to: public libraries, yarn shops, and people who want to be able to look things up, but don’t want to search the Internet to do it or who frequently don’t have Internet access.