As well as being interesting, Knitting Rules may well prove to be one of the more useful knitting books in my collection. In the context of shawls, it talks about simple methods to knit basic geometric shapes (circles, triangles, squares). Now, I don't usually knit shawls, certainly not for myself (I consider them an excellent way to drag a beautiful piece of hand-knitting through a plate of tomato sauce, or the moral equivalent), so I haven't had occasion to look at a lot of patterns. But I've been meaning to look this up for a while, as (like everyone else) I have a bunch of odds and ends of baby yarn that I've been thinking I should knit into squares and assemble into a scrappy baby blanket. (I find it's never a bad idea to have a baby blanket or two lying around in case of emergency gift needs.)
Eventually I would have spotted or derived some of these on my own. But now I won't have to! As for the rest of the book- a mix of useful and humorous suggestions, in Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's usual delightful style. Highly recommended.
I need to reread that one. I read most of it on a plane while knitting. All of her books have a surprising amount of useful information in with the fun and funny stuff - just like her blog.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Shawls are mostly a matter of practice and acceptance that you occasionally need to rearrange or rewrap. If you act like it's routine, no one looks askance at you.