A couple of knitting book reviews

We’ve been visiting family in California, which is always fun. One thing I like about it is that I can explore the knitting books in a different library. In other words, I’ve gone on vacation and brought you a couple of book reviews as a souvenir.

Cast On, Bind Off: 211 Ways to Begin and End Your Knitting, by Cap Sease. Martingale Press, 2012. ISBN 9781604684292

While I am far from having read all the knitting books in the world, I’m starting to reach a point where books that are new to me only excite me if they have techniques that are new to me. Most generic knitting books that I encounter, don’t. This book, on the other hand, was very exciting indeed. For one thing, while many of the techniques weren’t new to me, Cap Sease included many alternate names for them that I wasn’t familiar with. For another, there were quite a few cast-ons and bind-offs I hadn’t encountered before. And lastly, it confirmed that someone else had independently invented the mellow long-tail cast-on, which is apparently also named the Double Needle Cast-on.

The diagrams and instructions look good. I will be saving up my money to acquire this for myself!

The Knitting Book, by Vikki Haffenden and Frederica Patmore. DK, 2011. ISBN 9780756682354

This looks to be a good basic general knitting book, including some less commonly-known methods as well as the usual ones. It even has knitweaving and twice-knit knitting, as well as something I’d never seen before, called tea-cosy stitch. If you encounter it, I’d say it’s well worth a look, particularly if you don’t already have some good, well-rounded knitting reference books.