Amy R. Singer

No Sheep for You. knit happy with cotton, silk, linen, hemp, bamboo and other delights. by Amy R. Singer. Interweave Press Inc. 2007. Amy lives in Toronto.

This book is beautifully laid out, with lovely little drawings, clear photographs of textures and boxes of supplementary information alongside, but not interrupting, the text. Her writing is engaging and chatty.

There are three introductory chapters, the first is on fibres, how they’re grown or man-made, their structure, how they’re processed, properties and best uses, and care of finished article. It is thorough and a delightful read.

Chapter two: Successful sheepless substitutions to ensure your piece will have the same gauge, drape and body as the woolly pattern one intended. This includes charts to guide you when substituting for example: cables, easy care, stranded knitting, intarsia, or stitch definition.

Chapter three: a new and fun take on swatching. This too is very thorough.

Then there are 20 projects: sweaters for men and women, a one-skein collar, thrummed mittens, socks, a bag and a hat. Again there are side boxes treating: yarn pilling, needles, allergies to wool, weaving in slippery ends and gussets.

And finally there is a good glossary of terms and stitches and techniques.

Jacqueline Biéler, November 2008… (mer)

The tone is friendly and engaging. The section on how and where to measure is detailed and relatively straightforward. The book does best when it's describing qualitatively (e.g. short rows are added to make a wedge shape...) rather than quantitatively (e.g. (TND - F)/2... ). The math is solid, stepwise and correct but the presentation is stretched out over several pages with multitudes of acronyms. If you find yourself losing track, draw yourself a schematic and label it with all the acronyms.

The patterns are well-written and photographed. As with any book, tastes vary. The patterns are aimed at the 20-30 year old demographic.… (mer)