Sweater Quest

Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously by Adrienne Martini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful book about Adrienne's tale in knitting an Alice Starmore sweater, the holy grail of knitting. Though Adrienne does try to explain some knitting things to the muggles, aka non-knitters, it's obvious that only other crafters will really understand what it takes, and why, we would undertake a project such as this. She does a great job of explaining everything that goes into making a project of this size - from the little things like getting an audible subscription so she has something to knit to, from the larger things like finding substitute yarn.

Along the way, Adrienne is lucky enough to do a lot of traveling & meets lots of other knitters, including Ann & Kaye from Mason Dixon knitting, who are among my personal knitting favorites. She also gets into some history behind both Starmore & fair isle knitting, the latter which I was familiar with & the former I was not.

In the end, the result is something that probably wouldn't surprise any knitters & is something we've all gone through with any knitting or crocheting project near & dear to our hearts.

I may or may not have received a review copy for free - I have no memories of receiving or buying this book, & there are no price stickers on it anywhere.

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book review: Tunisian Crochet

Tunisian Crochet by Sharon Hernes Silverman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Anyone who reads my blog regular knows that I've been rather hooked (pun intended) on tunisian lately. Besides devouring the net for patterns, hints, & tricks, I've been taking out books from the library, & so far I've been really disappointed with what I've been able to find. Most of them show the same 3 or 4 stitches that are easily found on the internet, & most of the projects are pretty much the same things: the scarf, the placemats, a plain bag, blah blah blah, using the same 3 or 4 stitches. They've all been so similiar I haven't even bothered to blog about them, because I had nothing positive to say. So when I took out Silverman's book, I wasn't expecting anything great.

but I was wrong & pleasantly surprised! Of course, there's the usual primer section with the same old boring basics & stitches that are in every crochet book on the market, it seems. But... the projects... are ones you'd actually want to make - using yarn you'd actually WANT to use!

yes, there is the usual scarf & bag (though the spin here is a felted clutch) -- but there's a very cute skirt, some nice wraps / shawls, a gorgeous duster (why are they called dusters, anyway? It's a cardigan) that I would actually wear, using affordable & easily found Lion Brand Cotton Ease. There are some very nice afghans & other wearables, too. I like this book enough I ordered one from amazon to keep in my personal craft library - and anyone who knows me, knows that's saying something!

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