Books About Knitting

This week's Long & Short Reviews prompt was "Books About My Favo(u)rite Topic."

No, that would not be butterflies, or even cats, and it certainly wouldn't be glyphosate. Going by my actual purchase records, my clear favorite topic is knitting.

And here are ten favorite books, long enjoyed, from the 300 or so on the pattern hoard wall in my Home Office:

Madeline Weston, Classic British Knits

Eighties interpretations of lightweight textured ganseys, colorful (often all-natural-colors) fairisles, chunky cabled Arans, and lacy knitted shawls. They really deserve to be knitted in English and Irish wools, though I've made most of them in cotton or even acrylic yarn. When people say they want a sweater they can wear indoors, this is a book I show them. In the nineteenth century, when these knitting traditions began, people prized "fine" yarns and would rather layer on two or three lightweight sweaters than wear a "coarse" chunky one, so the most traditional, true-to-the-museum-piece English sweaters are knitted with wool no thicker than crochet cotton. Most knitters today think such lightweight, slow-growing knits might as well be done on machines. It's still possible to buy the "fine" English wool yarn, though, even in the US, if you want to pay for it.

Annette Mitchell, The Country Diary Book of Knitting

In the 1980s, when publishers expanded their vision of knitting pattern books from plain little how-to-knit manuals (which were often easy to carry around, cheap, and useful) into big glossy coffee-table patterns for Eighties Sweaters as Art and Fashion, this was my first "favorite." It's still a favorite. The retro-Edwardian clothes were over-the-top, and still are. The sweaters are relatively simple styles, good choices for the second or third sweater someone knits, and still wearable today. This book is the source of the cotton sweater I model when marketing my knits, and of the "cluster lace" pattern shown above. (Cluster patterns were very popular in actual Edwardian knitting books but they weren't used to make entire sweaters--that's an Eighties Thing. They were usually used to make borders, sometimes lace edgings sewn onto bed linens of woven fabric.) Ahead of its time, this book also contained patterns for easy-to-make accessories. I've made all of the hats and about half of the sweaters, over the years; most recently I consulted the book for stitch patterns to use in the dish rags that still sell fairly fast in summer. 

Sue Bradley, Around the World in 80 Sweaters

Ironically, while Annette Mitchell's Country Diary Book of Knitting doesn't give a count but does contain more than 80 patterns, this book as published doesn't come near that number. The publisher undoubtedly trimmed back the page count. The book is still a gorgeous coffee-table confection with lots of the museum pieces that inspired these elaborate, very Eighties designs, lots of additional museum pieces for would-be designers, and at least three suggested variations on each of the sweaters that were actually featured in the book. Knit the elaborate versions featured in the full-page, full-color photos if you want to make something that screams "Eighties" (and has high potential for becoming an Ugly Sweater after a few years' wear and tear), or knit the simpler variations if you want something easier to wear and likely to last longer. I've made and worn several designs from this book and its companion...

Sue Bradley, Stitches in Time

Again, about twenty patterns with at least three variations each, suggested by museum pieces. My bead-free version of the "Byzantine" sweater, for which the pattern recommends beads, is shown above. 

Christian de Falbe, Designs in Hand Knitting

Challenging sweater patterns that showed off the knitter's skills were another Eighties Thing, and this book is full of them. This designer published enough designs to put out magazines twice a year, in the 1970s and 1980s, and the hardcover book contains the ones people liked best. When I've knitted them, they've sold. Marketing his designs to experienced knitters allowed de Falbe to design sweaters that were a little more fitted to the female body than was typical in the 1980s, when, no matter how flowery and "feminine" the knitted-in pictures might be, or how fluffy the fabric, most sweater shapes were unisex. He was also marketing his yarn, which was thinner than most hand knitting yarn sold in the US, and made lighter, more wearable sweaters.

American School of Needlework, The Great Knitting Book 

My late Eighties fluorescent-colors version of the early Eighties preppy blue and green sweater (and cap) on the front cover. This book contains patterns for almost everything that can be knitted, including stuffed toys, doilies, edgings to put on towels or pillow cases, blankets, hats, socks, and of course several relatively simple sweaters. You can make the sweaters look totally Awesome Eighties by using, e.g., fluorescent yarn, but they're relatively traditional, timeless patterns.

Kaffe Fassett, Glorious Knits 

Fassett did a lot to market handknitting and handknitted sweaters, as Art and Fashion, in the Eighties with his trademark rule, "When in doubt, add twenty more colors." Shown is a variation on the snug-fitted, very girly-girly floral jacket near the end of the book; someone wanted to see that pattern on an oversized floppy "comfort" sweater for a large person, so here it is. Some of the other designs in the book are even harder to overlook, and some are relatively subdued mixes of neutral colors for men.

Linda Ligon, Homespun Handknit

As the editor of Threads magazine Ligon ran a contest for original designs for hats, mittens, socks, and matching sets of the above. The winning designs were printed as a book. This is the book. Knitters can make most of these projects from scraps left over from sweaters and blankets, and they always have a timeless, cute, handmade look. 

Monica Lewandowski, Folk Mittens

Most of the traditional knitting patterns that were used to design Eighties Sweaters came from old socks, caps, and mittens found in museums. In this book all the best known knitting patterns from museum pieces are reapplied to mitten designs made with yarn that was available around 2000. 

Debbie Anderson and (later US Senator) Chellie Pingree, Sweaters from the Maine Islands

This book caught people's eye, in the late Eighties, because the cover featured not only a knitted-in hen image on a sweater but a model actually holding up a pet hen. I've knitted most of these sweaters; sold several of them. They're fun to knit but, be warned, they were designed by and for young women with thin upper arms. When knitted as designed they'll make some clients complain that they're tight around the arms and hard to wear. So, you can simplify the sleeves, as I did in the cardigan above, for a very Eighties effect, or you can add gussets to the patterns.