Margaret Radcliffe is the best kind of picky. Prepare to be dazzled with the sheer amount of thought she’s put into the this book. The Knowledgeable Knitter is all about the details of knitting construction, from designing your own patterns, understanding one written by someone else (and how you can tell if it’s badly written before you start), to seaming up your finished work without a flaw.
A woman after my own heart, she wants to teach you not just the how, but the why of things. As the blurb on the back reads, “As Radcliffe demystifies the ‘why?’ behind every technique, you’ll gain the confidence to customize your projects.” I think that Radcliffe and Elizabeth Zimmerman have quite a lot in common. They both teach us to knit for ourselves and to fully understand what we’re trying to create so it comes out exactly how we meant it.
There are sections on swatching, getting gauge, different borders and edgings, and plenty of casting on-and-off methods. This is a seriously invaluable book if you want to further your knowledge of knitting and yarn. She writes in a technical, but warm manner, so you feel like she’s your own personal knitting tutor.
Her mind is staggering. Reading through this book, you can tell how much time and thought she’s put into the methods she describes. Want to know how to best seam edges? She’ll show you all the ways she knows. The best way to center a pattern stitch while increasing and decreasing? She’s got plenty of ideas. She sets out to help you to make your project the best it can be in every way. The only thing this book lacks is a section on the basics of knitting like knit and purl stitches, but to be honest I don’t think this book needs it. In order to use this book, it’s already assumed you are comfortable with the basics. The Knowledgeable Knitter will take you far beyond, and is a book that would fit in any fiber library.
Pick The Knowledgeable Knitter up on Amazon here…