Fair Isle Sweaters Simplifed

Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified: Philosopher's Wool [With Book Comes W/Flaps] by Ann Bourgeois
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received a copy of this book from paperbackbookswap. I've often gotten it from the library, and actually learned how to knit fair isle from this book years ago. The sweaters are gorgeous & most of them are easy enough for beginner fair isle knitters. My favorite is a sweater that actually uses slipped stitches and fair isle knitting.

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book review: Casting Spells

Casting Spells by Barbara Bretton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I saw a review of this book on another blog - sorry, original blogger, I didn't save the post - and since I'm an obsessive knitter & obsessed with vampires, witches, fairies, and the like, I immediately requested the book from interlibrary loan.

You'll saw my huge library pile I got last week, this book was in it. Well, it was the first one to be picked up from the stack (even though I was reading 3 other books at one time), and I absolutely laughed out loud - literally made my cat cross eyed with me - from the very first page. Obviously Bretton was sincere in her desire to make a GOOD knitting fiction book; it's been done before, but usually the knitting references are done in passing, and it's obvious the writer has no real connection to knitting (an exception is The Shop on Blossom Street, by Debbie Macomber). The addition of paranormal elements made me just giddy. There's a bit of romance, which I'm not a huge fan of, but the book is so well written, I felt myself rooting for the relationship between Chloe & Luke all the same.

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review: Yarn

Yarn: Remembering the Way Home by Kyoko Mori
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a knitter & crocheter, naturally I enjoy reading about the subject, whether a non-fiction or a fiction book. This book is a memoir about Kyoko's life, starting with her childhood & a personal tragedy. She grows up, moves to America, gets married, and lives her life. The stories about her life, are intertwined with stories about learning to knit, making her first sweater, discovering circular knitting & Elizabeth Zimmermann. I'm a huge fan of EZ, so whenever someone talks about discovering her for the first time, I get a big thrill.

I am giving this book four stars for two reasons: one, I had difficulties keeping track of time. She goes back to her childhood so often, that I often couldn't tell if she was talking about the past or the present. Towards the end, she was retelling a story involving her husband that I thought took place in the past, until I realized after rereading it, she actually meant the present.

Two, I felt the story moved along slowly - I guess I just like more action in my books.

Again, these are just my personal opinions, just because I felt the book moved slowly doesn't mean someone else wouldn't greatly love the pacing.



I received a copy of this book for free from netgalley.com

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