Book Review: Knit Wits

Title: Knit Wit

Author: Amy R. Singer

Author’s’zine: www.knitty.com

Date: 2004

Publisher: Harper Resource

ISBN: 0-06-074070-1

Length: 128 pages

Illustrations: many color photos by Bill Milne, some color drawings by Erica Mulherin

Quote: “Clearly you want to knit, or you wouldn’t be holding this book.”

Around 2000, people who’d caught knitting mania in the 1990s were starting to feel that they had enough sweaters and/or sweater patterns. The market for books that showed people how to knit by knitting sweaters took a sharp decline. The market for books that showed people how to knit other “fashion items” (most of which are as classic and fashion-free as sweaters) took a corresponding upsurge, and at that point on the marketing chart Amy Singer produced the first official printed collection from the online magazine, Knitty.com.

So here are patterns for leg warmers, scarves, hats, a “nose warmer,” slippers, an “ice cream pint cozy” (good for a laugh if you knit a few dozen for a bazaar), laptop cover, Sony Walkman and Discman covers, a long skinny “yoga mat bag,” a bottle sling, belts, shorts, miniskirts, a bikini, and five sweaters. Missing are coasters, towels, and washcloths, which Knitty readers can figure out how to design for themselves.

(There are new patterns online at Knitty now. If you spend some time formatting them correctly in Word, you can print them to fit into the quirky stand-up format of this book. If you save money or even earn money with these patterns, it’s good form to pay for the’zine at PATREON.)

What’s not to like in this collection? Publishers do this for valid marketing reasons but, if I were a publisher, I wouldn’t waste expensive pages in a glossy full-color book taken up with “how to knit.” People can, or should, learn how to cast on and off, knit plain and purl stitches, attach new yarn, run in ends, and knit in beads and sequins if they want them, in real life or from instructions printed on regular paper. Slick paper that takes full-color glossy photos well should be used for printing photos and accompanying instructions. At a pinch it’d be better to include more pictures on the slick paper and more instructions, with thumbnail black-and-white images of the projects, on another big sheet of plain paper, rather than waste slick paper on prose that would be easier to read on regular paper. About 36 of this book’s 128 pages don’t need glossy paper.

Seriously, that’s my quibble. I doubt that anybody wants every one of these knitted items but that’s par for the course; when the less inspired patterns in a book are for bazaar items (an ice cream carton cover?!), at least you can get your money’s worth of fun out of them. For all who enjoy knitting, this is a fun and useful read.