(Long overdue) Book Review: 60 Quick Knits by Tanis Gray

I'm a bit overdue on this, but in April, Tanis Gray (formerly of Vogue Knitting/Soho Publishing) released a book called 60 Quick Knits: 20 Hats*20 Scarves*20 Mittens in Cascade 220 (Sixth & Spring Books 2010) (MSRP $17.95; available via the link for $12.21 at the time of the writing). This is such a handy little book that I wanted to get a book review in, even though I'm a teensy bit late.

The concept of the book is brilliant: Cascade 220 is one of the most popular yarns around, regularly at the top of Ravelry's "Most Popular Yarns" ranking and carried in yarn shops all over the country. It's an extremely versatile yarn, knitting at 4.5 to 5 sts per inch, it's well-priced, it's 100-percent wool, and it comes in a gazillion colors -- including variegated and heathers. There's even a superwash version. Tanis has collected 60 patterns that all use Cascade 220. And the patterns are all for scarves, mittens/gloves and hats, some of the most popular items to make, wear and give. So let's take a look inside.

Cabled-Cuff Mittens by Cheryl Murray

60 Quick Knits is a paperback, about 160 pages, full-color. The book contains a brief introduction, telling readers about Cascade 220's background, a one-page "Things to Know" section, containing abbreviations and suchlike, and then jumps right into the patterns. There are twenty patterns for hats, twenty for scarves and twenty for mittens/gloves/gauntlets, and there are no chapters -- just pattern after pattern. One of the nice things about the book is that there is something to tempt just about any knitter. You'll find simple, easy patterns for newbies, like basic stockinette hats and ribbed gauntlets, as well as more complex patterns for adventurous knitters, including cables

Textured Tam by Jacquiline van Dillen

stranded colorwork (see the mittens below), lacy stitches

Leaf Scarf by Mary Beth Temple

slip-stitch patterns, modular knitting

Mitered Scarf by Amy Polcyn

and more. Personal favorites of mine are these colorwork mittens

Spotted Fair Isle Mittens by Cheryl Murray

the simple-but-chic Ribbed Keyhole Scarf

Ribbed Keyhole Scarf by Angela Juergens

and this clever Cable Brim Tam.

Cabled Brim Tam by Therese Chynoweth

Will you vomit copiously if I engage in shameless self-promotion by pointing out that I have two hat patterns included in the collection? One is the Scalloped Edge Beanie


and the other is the Ribbed Pillbox




As with any pattern book, it's all a function of taste. Checking out the photos will give you a sense for whether these patterns work with your taste, although given that you can easily find this book for twelve dollars, it's hard not to beat approximately twenty cents a pattern even if you don't like them all.

In other respects, the book contains exactly what you would expect: mainly one-size patterns (given that items like scarves and hats are so flexible in fit), charts where necessary (black and white charts for textured/cable patterns, color ones for stranded and other colorwork), clear photos of the garments with close-ups of the stitch patterns.

Striped Graduated Scarf by Jean Suzuki

For under twenty bucks (and depending on where you purchase, well under fifteen bucks), 60 Quick Knits gives you a whopping sixty patterns in an extremely versatile yarn (one that is easy to substitute for if for some strange reason, you just used up your last ball of Cascade 220 but have other worsted-weight yarn in your stash), with a variety of styles and techniques, at skill levels ranging from basic to adventurous. How can you beat that? And if you are someone who knits for charity or likes to knit gifts for others, this book would be an excellent way to play around with some new patterns.

No-Bull Book Review: Knitting New Mittens and Gloves by Robin Melanson

Think of the challenge facing poor Robin Melanson. People have been knitting mittens and gloves for hundreds (thousands?) of years. In the past year, at least three books with "mittens" in the title have been released. And the design of handgear is largely constrained by the odd shape of the human hand: narrow at the wrist, abruptly widening for the palm, thumb sticking out on one side, fingers of different lengths. How do you reinvent the mitten or glove when faced with such challenges?

Luckily, Robin was up to the task, as you'll see in today's No Bull Book Review of Knitting New Mittens and Gloves: Warm and Adorn Your Hands in 28 Innovative Ways (Stewart Tabori & Chang 2008).

Knitting New Mittens & Gloves is part of a series of books seeking to put a different spin on a traditional genre of knitwear. (Knitting New Scarves: 27 Distinctly Modern Designs, released last year, was the first.) The books are on the smaller side and paperback (most STC books are quite a bit bigger and hardcover), a good size and weight for slipping into a knitting bag without being so small that they restrict content. MSRP is $21.95 but you can score it for just under fifteen bucks at the time of this writing by clicking on the link above.



Melanson grew up in Canada and credits harsh North Atlantic winters for her love of gloves and mittens -- a necessity when you live on the coast. She has filled the book with 27 or so patterns for mittens, gloves, fingerless gloves and armwarmers -- basically every possible permutation that will fit on a human hand or arm. For the statisticians among you, I counted 2 pair of armwarmers (meaning tubes that fit on the arm without extending onto the wrist and hand); 1 handwarmer (something more than a tube but less than a mitten); 6 gloves; 9 mittens (one of them is a "flip-top" style, to make it easy to do things like use keys without taking the whole thing off); and 10 fingerless styles, plus two additional fingerless versions that are given as variations on a regular mitten or glove design. Sorry, crocheters: all the designs are knitted.

Gauges are all over the map: the thickest yarn I saw knit at just under 3 sts per inch, and there are a few patterns using fingering weight in the 7 to 8 sts per inch range; you'll find several patterns knitting at 5 sts per inch and several more at 5.5 per inch, but there's something for just about any yarn in your stash. Melanson doesn't stick to traditional pure wool, either; you'll find lots of wools, of course, but also cotton, a silk/viscose blend, silk/seacell, alpaca blends, mohair blends, and so on. Some of the yarns are crunchy or tweedy in texture, while others are variegated, fuzzy, or thick-n-thin. Melanson does a good job of matching the various types of yarn to the patterns, keeping in mind the texture, fuzziness, elasticity, and so on. Considering that mittens and gloves don't take much in the way of yardage, there are plenty of patterns here to help blow through some of those orphaned skeins in your stash.

So what are the patterns like?

Well, just as Melanson includes lots of fibers and gauges, she also includes lots of different styles. You'll find traditional styles, like this classic pair of gloves, worked in Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift, with a fair isle stranded design at the wrist. Melanson was inspired by Celtic motifs in creating the band, which she describes as resembling a golden bracelet on the wrist (she has a degree in Celtic studies, and its influence can be seen in many of her designs).


These Norwegian mittens are also inspired by traditional stranded work and have a traditional shape, but the dash of electric lime gives them a modern spin (and if you don't like modern spins, or electric lime, easy enough to pick a different color for that design element).


If you are looking for less traditional, you'll have choices, too:



These mittens, called "Sheltie," at first glance seem odd: why wear mittens that are more holes than fabric? But take a closer look, and you'll find a soft, mohair layer underneath (it's white, and maybe a different-colored background in the photo would help make this more clear). The two layers help to insulate the hands more, in addition to creating a funky mesh look. Not my usual style, but clever and looks great. I'm having fun imagining all sorts of color combinations, too (a really bright mohair underlayer with a neutral overlay? a solid color underlayer with a multi overlay?).

Again, this doesn't happen to be my personal style, but these gloves, called "Blackthorn" after the tree that produces sloe berries (sloe gin, anyone?), invoke a Robin Hood kind of feel, with the lacing on the back of the hand.

These armwarmers combine a Latvian-type braid as edging with motifs inspired by medieval tapestries.


And there are plenty more good-looking patterns, like these gloves with a ruffled cuff

these striking cream gloves, with a long cuff to show off the German twisted stitch pattern:

beaded fingerless gloves, using Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn (anybody wanna make 'em in some Black Bunny?)

and these mittens featuring cables and bobbles:


I especially like that most of the patterns involve something more than just a plain pair of mittens -- e.g., stranded design, beading, cables, traveling stitches -- to make them more challenging and more interesting.

As far as the production quality, this is a paperback book, with around 144 pages. It is color throughout, including all color photos (lovely work by Tyllie Barbosa) and color charts for the stranded knitting. Each mitten or glove is shown in a full-page photo to give an overview of its appearance, and most patterns also include a close-up of a specific design element. (And several of the patterns are shown in different variations, i.e., a long cuff and a short cuff, using different colors and yarns, to give you a feel for how you might want to individualize them.) Personally, I found the pattern type to be a wee bit small for me; however, I am not too proud to admit that this may be a function of forty-plus-year-old eyes. There are no schematics since they are mittens/gloves/armwarmers. Sizing varies; more than half are written for one size, an average woman's hand (around 7.5 to 8 inches circumference). Two are written for a wide range of sizes from child through men's. The rest are given in various permutations of two or three sizes (e.g. small child, medium child, woman; or women's small/women's medium-large).

It's also worth noting that no pages are wasted on how-to-knit instructions. The back, however, features some material that might be helpful to newer knitters who know the basics but will appreciate tips on how to select yarns; types of needles; beading basics; blocking (something we don't always think of for accessories like mittens); some alternate cast-ons; embroidery basics; how to make I-cord; and so on. I especially liked the index to projects by yarn weight. If you've got some, say, DK-weight yarn in your stash, one glance and you can figure out which patterns are written for that gauge.

So I give a mitten-covered thumbs-up to Knitting New Mittens and Gloves. It's a nice blend of the classic and the funky, it features interesting and sometimes challenging designs, and it will help you burn through your stash while having a lot of fun. (And if you like to knit holiday gifts, I'm thinking you could check a lot of different folks off your list with the variety and quantity of patterns in this book.) When you consider you are getting over 25 patterns, plus variations, for less than fifteen bucks, I'd say it's a bargain.

And speaking of bargains, it has come to my attention that Stewart, Tabori and Chang, the publisher of Knitting New Mittens and Gloves, is offering a free mitten pattern from the book here. The Alternating Current Mittens are knit in a bulky yarn, in both mitten and fingerless form, and STC is suggesting that if you download the pattern, you might consider making an extra pair for a person in need. (In fact, if you are so inclined, you can mail them to me and I will add them to our knitting for homeless vets charity drive that is still on-going.)

No-Bull Book Reviewtm Twofer: Stitch Style Socks & Stitch Style Mittens

Don't forget to stop by the Black Bunny Fibers update today at 2 p.m. EST. Until then, please enjoy the following book review:

I will confess that I think it’s quite the coincidence that another publishing company has come up with a series of knitting books featuring the word “Style” in the title, after Interweave Press’s phenomenally popular “Style” series (see, e.g., Lace Style and Scarf Style ). Craft books, “style” in the title, devoted to one general category of knitting/crochet, multicontributors. Yep, very coincidental.



However, I am ready to cast aside this cynicism and with an open mind, road test Stitch Style Socks: Twenty Fashion Knit and Crochet Styles and Stitch Style, Mittens: Twenty Fashion Knit and Crochet Styles (both Martingale Press 2008), subjecting them to the rigors of the patented No-Bull Book Review^tm .



Let’s begin with the externals. We’ve got two paperbacks, each about seven inches square, each just under one hundred pages. MSRP for each is $17.95 (available for $12.21 by clicking on the links above). Each features twenty patterns to knit and crochet. Each is full color, with lots of photographs throughout. Each features a fold-out flyleaf in lieu of a dust jacket. The books are designed, like the Vogue On-The-Go series, to be a convenient size for carrying around in a knitting (or crochet) bag.

The Introduction to Mittens tells us breathlessly: “From trendy teenage girls to thirtysomething professionals, everyone is hand stitching these days.” Striving vigorously to maintain my open mind, I will refrain from commenting on a definition of “everybody” that goes all the way from age 13 to 39. The introduction goes on to promise “a collection of contemporary and urban projects that’ll keep you constantly inspired and motivated!” with “memorable styles inspired by everything from catwalks to street fashion.” These designs, the Introduction assures us, have been created “by young urban knitters and trendsetters with a penchant for craft.” Once again, I will refrain from questioning whether trend-apathetic knitters who are not young and urban might also have something to contribute. Open mind, open mind.*



The book contains exactly twenty patterns for handgear. I say “handgear,” because there are more variations on the traditional mitten included in this collection than there are regular mittens. You'll find gloves with fingers, gloves without fingers, wristwarmers, armwarmers, gauntlets, even two muffs.



(Please don’t ask me to tell you the precise difference between wristwarmers, fingerless gloves, armwarmers and gauntlets. Not to mention pulsewarmers. As best as I can tell, they are all just tubes for your lower arms, with or without fingerholes.).**

The book is not divided into sections, so here's a quick walk-through of what you'll find (including the name of the designer, so you can see if any of your favorites are included):

• mittens with a polka-dot pattern done via stranded colorwork (Judy Furlong);


• wristwarmers with a slip-stitch color pattern (Jennifer Appleby);


• textured elbow-length gloves; they're the gold ones in the photo above the cabled muff (Malgosia Dzik-Holden);


• crocheted gauntlets with crocheted rose buttons at the wrist (Claire Garland);


• openwork fingerless gloves (kind of defeats the purpose of gloves, no?) (Carol Meldrum):


• mittens with sequins on the cuffs (Melissa Halvorsen);


• long wristwarmers with an eyelet pattern (Lynne Serpe);


• long armwarmers with satin ribbons threaded through them (Sue Bradley);
  
• striped mittens (Katherine Hunt);


• lacy black fingerless gloves suitable for more formal attire (also Furlong);


• colorful fair isle-style wrist warmers, the cover photo (knit in aran-weight yarn; Gabrielle Carter);


• a striped muff with a cord to hold it around your neck (Sophie Britten);


• “flip-top” mittens done in crochet (Carol Meldrum); forgive me, but these look to me like fancy oven mitts;




• long mittens with a cable motif on the back (another by Hunt);


• long gloves knit with cuffs that have accordion-style pleating (Gryphon Perkins);




• mittens with knitted ribbon bows (another by Britten);


• flip mittens with a scallop motif (Carter);


• wrist warmers with a clock motif done in intarsia on the back, shown below (Bradley);


• mittens with stranded colorwork, starting with one color at the cuff and finishing with the other color at the top of the hand (a third by Meldrum);
  
  
  
  
  and


• a white cabled muff (above), very long and skinny (Kimberly Cherubin).
  

The Introduction to Socks tells us breathlessly, “From trendy teenage girls to thirtysomething professionals, everyone is hand stitching these days.” Hey! The Introduction to Socks is exactly the same as the Introduction to Mittens (except the word “Socks” is substituted for “Mittens”). Points will be deducted for the cut and paste job.



Once again, there are no sub-chapters dividing up the patterns, so here is a summary description of each pattern, along with designer name:

• “socks” (they are really more like slippers) styled like Mary Jane shoes (Tanis Gray);


• slippers with intarsia fleur-de-lis patterning (Alison Dupernex);


• striped socks that also feature a checkerboard pattern around the cuff (Lynn Serpe);


• socks with stranded colorwork featuring a skull motif (Stephanie Mrse); even though I think skull motifs are so commonplace in knitting as to no longer be very subversive, I like these;


• anklets featuring contrast toe and heel and stranded colorwork hearts around the cuff (Mrse again);


• socks featuring a houndstooth pattern done in stranded colorwork, the cover photo (Judy Furlong);


• socks with a textured patern and some embellishment in the form of knitted flowers and leaves, and beads (Simona Merchant-Dest);


• leg warmers with multicolored beads (Sue Bradley);





• lace socks with twisted ties at the cuff (Merchant-Dest);


• socks with satin ribbon threaded vertically (Ellen Mallett);


• socks with unusual circular appliqués and a heel flap sewn on at the end (P.D. Cagliastro);


• slippers with a crown colorwork motif, and sequins used to look like jewels (Bradley);


• cabled legwarmers (Gray);


• intarsia floral socks (Sasha Kagan, and classic lovely Kagan at that);
  
  
  
  


• flip-flop socks with split toe (Kate Buchanan);


• socks with slouchy (seriously slouchy) tops (Karen Garlinghouse);


• crocheted socks done in pure silk, with bead accents and a daisy-style motif (Garland again);


• thigh-highs knit in pure silk with contrasting trim (Malgosia Dzik-Holden);


• another pair of slippers with all kinds of er, stuff on them (Bradley); and


• knee-high “kilt socks” (Sian Luyken).
  

I did question some of the stylistic or design choices that were made in both books. For example, crocheted socks done in pure silk? Worsted-weight cotton for footwear? I would probably substitute yarns were I to make most of the patterns. Indeed, it struck me as exceedingly odd that a book devoted to sock patterns contains not a single pattern using regular sock yarn. I'm not one of those folks who thinks that socks can't ever be knit in anything other than sock yarn, mind you, but this just seems weird to me. The cynic in me cannot be repressed anymore; I suspect the folks behind this book were underestimating their audience, thinking that young knitters wouldn't want to knit things in 7 or 8 to an inch sock yarns. (I suspect they are wrong.)

If your budget is a constraint for you, and you want to make some of these patterns, you may need to substitute yarns. For example, one sock pattern calls for 10 balls of Rowan Wool-Cotton. Wool-Cotton is one of my favorite all-time yarns; however, 10 balls will set you back approximately a hundred bucks. Pretty expensive socks. You'll want to use scraps of yarn you already have, or look for a more economical alternative. Similarly, the thigh-high stockings are knit in Bliss Pure Silk, at $14 a skein; the pattern calls for 7 skeins.

I also have issues with the way the items were photographed. Put simply, there just aren't enough close-up shots. Most of these patterns feature some sort of patterning, whether an intarsia motif, a stitch pattern or embellishment, yet the photographs are mostly shot from far away. (The better to get long skinny model legs in?) I can understand some faraway shots for stylistic purposes, but knitters need good close-up view of the garments they are making, and this is especially easy to do when they are smaller items like socks and mittens. Likewise, some items aren't shown in their entirety. For example, the thigh-high stockings are shown twice from the back, in nearly identical shots, but not at all from the front.



Maybe the front is plain, but it would be nice to see what it looks like, if for no other reason than to get a better feel for whether you'd want to make them or not. Finally, several items are knit in dark-colored yarns, making it difficult to see any design details or finished stitchwork.



The photography doesn't compensate for this in any way.

There is a concise how-to-knit and how-to-crochet section in the back. However, the Sock book does not explain how to use double-pointed needles, a conspicuous omission, since nearly all of the patterns require them. Instead of including "how to knit" instructions, Martingale would have done better to include a section on how to knit a sock, including DPN instruction, since I think it would be tough for a rank beginner to start with this book.

When it comes to aesthetics, you may have already guessed that not many of the patterns in either book are to my taste. I already have more gauntlet and wrist warmer patterns than I am ever likely to knit in this lifetime, and my taste in mittens and gloves runs more to ethnic and folk-style patterns, like those found in Folk Mittens(an oldie but goodie). Similarly, my taste in socks runs to the more traditional: give me an Ann Budd or Nancy Bush pattern any day, rather than the socks-with-a-gimmick



that seem to fill most of these pages. But what matters is what you think of them, and between my descriptions, the names of the contributing designers, and the photographs, you should get a feel for whether you will like the patterns in the book more than I do. (Because, shockingly, I am forced to conclude that it's not always about me.)

For those who are statistically inclined, allow me to provide you with some figures:

Number of Knitted vs. Crocheted Patterns:
Mittens: 18 knit; 2 crocheted
Socks: 19 knit; 1 crocheted

Gauges/Yarn weights:
Mittens (most use the yarns at the suggested gauge so I've combined them):3 patterns in fingering weight; 0 patterns in sportweight; 4 patterns in DK weight; 2 patterns in worsted weight; 7 patterns in aran weight; 4 patterns in yarns with fewer than 4 sts per inch

Socks (some knit the yarn at a gauge tighter than the ball band recommends):

Gauges: 1 pattern at 8+ sts per inch; 4 at 7 sts per inch; 7 knit at 6 sts per inch; 2 patterns knit a 5.5 sts per inch; 1 at 5 sts per inch; 3 at 4.5 sts per inch; 1 pattern in superchunky yarn (and one crochet pattern).

Yarn weights: 4 in fingering weight yarn; 10 in DK-weight yarn; 1 in worsted weight yarn; 4 in aran; 1 in superchunky.

Techniques used (this is a ballpark; some use more than one technique while others use mostly stockinette so the totals are less than 20):

Mittens:
Stranded colorwork - 3
Intarsia - 1
Cabling - 2
Beading/sequins - 1
Textured stitch - 1
Lace patterning (using the term "lace" very loosely, to include simple eyelets) - 4
Slip stitch pattern - 1

Socks:
Stranded colorwork: 6 patterns
Intarsia - 2
Cabling - 1
Textured stitchwork - 2
Lace patterning -- 3 (includes simple eyelets)

Sizing is variable and is one size fits most -- or maybe I should say one size will fit some. The socks are designed for a "woman's size 6-9" and the mittens are all over the map, with changing widths and lengths. It's hard to tell how variable the sizing is since, for example, many of the handgear patterns are fingerless or are meant to extend well up to the elbow. I suspect that some of the patterns are on the smaller side, though, so check the measurements if that's a concern for you.

Giving credit where credit is due, I will say that I found these books more aesthetically appealing than I have found most Martingale titles. Model choice and styling were much more pleasing to me than past books, apart from the photography criticisms mentioned above. The layout of the books is fine; charts are included where necessary (in color where appropriate) and the patterns appear to have everything that a pattern ought to have. These are not terribly expensive books, if you buy them discounted and consider that they each contain twenty patterns ($12 divided by twenty is about sixty cents a pattern).

So there you have it. If you're looking for sock or mitten patterns that are not folk-inspired, that feature lots of colorwork, and/or that have less typical design features (say, an intarsia clock),



you may find that sixty cents a pattern isn't a bad deal for these books.

As the cynic in me rises to the surface once again, I can just imagine the powers-that-be in Creative saying "I want patterns that aren't the same old lace or scandinavian colorwork! Something different! Something hip and trendy and cute! Not your grandmother's mittens or socks!"

The only problem for me is that I like my grandmother's mittens and socks.

*In the interests of truth in advertising, and without naming names, I feel obliged to point out that at least one of the designers involved in the two books is verifiably over the age of 40. Just goes to show you that us senior citizens in our 40s and 50s still have something to contribute...

**Rabbitch, please stop snickering. I know I said "muff" and "fingerhole" in the same paragraph, and I know you've only had about four hours of sleep in the last week, but please, dude, get a grip.