Book Review: Teen Knitting Club

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Teen Knitting Club

Author: Jennifer Wenger et al.

Date: 2004

Publisher: Artisan

ISBN: 1-57965-244-1

Length: 142 pages

Illustrations: color photos and graphics

Quote: “I like working with my hands. It’s rewarding to finish a project and be able to wear it.”

Here’s another basic knitting book for beginners. How does it stack up next to Melanie Falick’s Kids Knitting, Kathrin Behrens' Primer Libro de Punto, or Angela Wilkes' Knitting?

Size. Of the four, it’s the biggest book. That’s because it’s spiral-bound so the pages lie flat. Beginning knitters will appreciate this feature.

Number of patterns. More than Kids Knitting, fewer than Knitting or Primer Libro de Punto—but also more of the different patterns are for scarves, more are for silly novelty yarns that won’t be in stores (or be missed) in most seasons, and the sweater patterns are more fads rather than classics. All patterns are for teenaged girls. Hats and scarves are actually gender-neutral and some are photographed on boys, but the sweaters, bags, and ponchos are 2004 fashion statements. Experienced knitters can fix the 2004 fad features in the sweater patterns if they really want to knit super-chunky sweaters. Beginners can’t. So the number of patterns the beginning knitter will actually use is probably about even with the number in Kids Knitting. Beginners who want to knit more different classic garments will wish they had Knitting. For those who read Spanish (at all), Primer Libro de Punto offers by far the most usable patterns, but then, some of them are intended to be used after beginners have gained some experience from the dead-easy patterns.

Eye appeal. No comparison: Kids Knitting wins in this category, hands down, with its photos of adorable kids knitting and modelling on a lovely sheep farm. Primer Libro de Punto offers clear, straightforward photos that show the products without an obvious effort to add any extra kind of eye appeal. Knitting is a budget-conscious book, suitable for homeschoolers, with drawings instead of photos. Teen Knitting Club has full-color photos instead of drawings, but some of the photos don’t show the knitted product as clearly as they might. The eye-rolling girl modelling the basic Stockinette Scarf is also modelling a hat (instructions included) and a cardigan (instructions not included), which borders on False Advertising.

Datedness. The more fashion-conscious a pattern collection is, the less appeal it has every season after printing. Here again, no comparison: all three of the other books beat Teen Knitting Club. However, if you update the garments you wear with it, there’s really not much “fashion” about a hat, scarf, or blanket, which is what most of the patterns produce. The pictures look dated but the knitted products can still be used.

Clarity of instructions. Here again, Teen Knitting Club has room for improvement. The authors consider 4 stitches per inch “medium weight” knitting (actually it’s pretty bulky, as knitters will agree if they try wearing it). They recommend using circular needles to knit hats, which some beginners find confusing. You can only learn to make plain and purl stitches once, and those who learned from books rather than from people usually favor the book from which they learned; I think the graphics showing how the stitches are made look clear and simple, but then I learned to make them several years before this book was written.

Informativeness. Primer Libro de Punto rules this category with instructions for making not only different styles of garments, but different pattern stitches in addition to stock and garter stitch. All three of the other books introduce sock and mitten knitting; Teen Knitting Club does not.

Cuteness. All three of the American books outscore Knitting in the “cute and clever” category. I rate Kids Knitting at the top of this category, but then again the focus on middle school kids may be off-putting for teenyboppers who’d rather look at pictures of girls with lipstick and boys with mustaches.

So, which one would I use to teach a knitting class? Umm...there’s a reason why I bought all four, right? For a mixed group, if I had to choose one, I’d choose Knitting; its frugal design packs most information per cubic inch.

Knitting patterns, consisting as they do mostly of pictures and numbers, are surprisingly easy for experienced knitters around the world to read. I’ve heard of knitters who spoke only English figuring out knitting patterns that were written in Japanese! (That I’ve not tried.) Really raw beginners who don’t speak Spanish would probably not be able to use Primer Libro de Punto, but the ones who really learn to knit will be surprised by how soon they will be able to use it. Adults can learn from either Kids Knitting or Teen Knitting Club. Only for a group of terribly age-conscious schoolchildren does the age difference of the models in Kids Knitting and Teen Knitting Club matter—and some teenagers (and adults) would actually prefer wearing the “kid” sizes.

Teenagers using Teen Knitting Club today might feel something close to what I felt, in junior high school, “rapping” by mail with a church Sunday School program written in the cutting-edge slang of 1963. Polite teenagers my age didn’t say to friendly adults, as the teenaged offspring of people my age seem to do, “These worksheets are so out of date it hurts,” but I do remember looking at some of those worksheets and thinking, “Who says that any more? Did anybody ever say that, and if so what did it mean? ‘Rap sheets’ aren’t correspondence, they’re criminal records, and ‘rapping’ isn’t hanging out, it’s like ‘talking blues’ only faster, and I just know those oldies do not want anybody ‘rapping with’ them! Those poor oldies worked so hard to write something that would seem relevant ten or fifteen years ago, and they’ve still got copies on their hands, and the kids they wrote these worksheets for are all selling insurance and driving buses now...”

Then again...I worked through those worksheets, despite pitying the oldies who’d written them, and learned where to find the main “proof texts” in the Bible by using them. And today’s teenagers will probably look at that pullover with the sleeves draping down over the model’s hand and think “Yikes—did people actually wear that?” (The answer is no; fashion victims bought or made sleeves like that, but they rolled them up if they wore the sweaters.) Nevertheless, they can still enjoy making hats, scarves, and blankets as explained in this book.

For a knitting class—I would seriously recommend, if the class meets in a wool shop where there’s room for such things, bringing in the whole collection of how-to-knit books. Some students may actually respond best to the explication of plain and purl stitch in Mildred Graves Ryan's (error-ridden) Knitting for Pleasure—it worked for me—or the one in Knitting Without Tears, and why should students be deprived of Sally Melville’s fabulous Knitting Experience collection? Let students pass them around for reference while making their first sweaty little garter stitch scarves, and choose their own “real projects.” Some are likely to favor the ponchos and cell phone bags in Teen Knitting Club.

Verdict: Teen Knitting Club still has something special to offer high school and college students.

I’m a well-known pattern hoarder, and even I have found it easy to knit through this book and pass it on. But I was too old for it when it was printed. Teen Knitting Club does have merit, not the least of which is the way it suggests ways teen knitters can (still) mingle and have a ton of fun. Knitting is a skill that has many teen-specific applications...relieving stress, meeting people, math, charity, bonding with older people...This book is only one among many that can teach beginners how to knit, but it’s the only one that really tells teenagers why.

And, what to do with that pattern for a super-chunky pullover in which any fashion victim who actually wore it might have fainted from the heat? In view of the current fashion for thin, transparent sweater-oid objects “just for layering,” why not buy some skinny yarn—Michaels often offers good deals on sock yarn—and knit a thin, transparent, lacy version? Bingo, you’d be back at the dizzy, daffy height of fashion. Though whenever I wore anything that was all that fashionable, as a teenager, I always wanted to die of embarrassment.

To buy Teen Knitting Club here, send $5 per book, $5 per package, and $1 per online payment to the appropriate address, as discussed in the Greeting Post, and we'll send $1 to Wenger or a charity of her choice. I've not actually tried to squeeze all four of the basic knitting books compared in this review into a $5 package, but, since Knitting is a thin book and Kids Knitting and Primer Libro de Punto are standard-sized, I think they could all be shipped together for a total of $25 (to Boxholder at P.O. Box 322) or $26 (to the e-mail address you get from salolianigodagewi @ yahoo).