Vogue Knitting

In the absence of knitting on anything other than the shawl, I picked up my new book, Vogue Knitting, the Ultimate Knitting Book. Time for a book review! I went through the whole book last evening, reading much of it, and scanning all the technical stuff.

It's a heck of a book. Easily readable, Really good clear drawings, great photography of details. It has the finest section on the history of knitting in a book of this kind that I have read with photos and samples of ancient works. It details the types of tools and the basics of yarns. It gives the fundamentals of knitting, it goes through all kinds of basic techniques, it details all sorts of finishing techniques, blocking styles of knitting and a really neat section on collars of all kinds to help you adapt basic design to make it your own. It is without a doubt a good book filled with all kinds of great technical information for those of us looking for a solid reference book about knitting.

With one huge flaw. It says there are only 2 kinds of knitting, Western and Continental. It details the differences of those two styles and does well enough, but to be honest, to a combined knitter like me, and to anyone else who knits just a little different, this book feel like a slap in the face. Books with that narrow perspective are the kind of thing that kept me from knitting for decades.

Had I not given up entirely on knitting, (to the point that I gave away my lone knitting book, a really good copy of the old format of the Harmony Guides, which I wish I had back) reading Vogue Knitting would have made me quit. It would have convinced me with that first section that I was a dunce, and a person entirely short of the brains required to knit. Nothing in the book, not the pictures, not the language, not the narrow focus would have identified why I could make every flat piece of knitting in the darn book, but that every single time I decreased or increased, why each time I tried anything other than knitting and purling, everything would have ended up looking wrong.

I think this version of Vogue Knitting falls short of the mark. All it really needs is a chapter discussing the different ways of knitting, a few pictures showing the orientation of the stitch and the way the needle enters the stitch would have made a huge difference to knitters like me.

It pains me to feel this way about this otherwise pretty solid book. Reading it with the understanding I now have, it will be a very valuable reference. I expect to go back to it many times over the course of my knitting life.

Feeling the way I do, all I can give Vogue Knitting the Ultimate Knitting Book is a Single Crochet.

If you know a little about knitting and have been taught by someone who knit Western, this is a good book for you. If you have been taught by a knitter of another style, keep looking.