Sharon Turner (1) (1962–)

I bought this book specifically to give me inspiration when I want to change up the texture of my knitting when following other patterns (I apparently hate following a pattern exactly!). The large photographs with knitting charts will do the job perfectly for me, and I like the size of the book. I'm fairly new to knitting, but from flipping through, it seems like every combination I've ever come across is represented, or else the basic building blocks are here.

This book does not have the very basic starting instructions for knitting. It goes right into the patterns, assuming that the reader already knows the basics. However, the back of the book does have a list of abbreviations and chart symbols, which I'm grateful for. But usually, I just google whatever I'm not sure about and look at several explanations and videos anyway, so for me, including the basics would be redundant (and I don't trust just one source anyway for those).

I like that between the table of contents and the stitch encyclopedia itself, Turner has created a guide to each set of stitches with an explanation about what these stitches are and tips about using them - for example, in Section 3, Bobbles and Textured Stitches, she explains how they can be used and how to measure the amount of yarn needed.

There are ten different sections, more or less arranged by complexity. The corners of the pages are color-coded to help flip to the right section easily. However, inside each section, the stitches are also arranged by complexity (near as I can tell), and not alphabetically. This is one negative to the book - there's no alphabetical listing of the stitches, so you have to either flip through page by page or scan the table of contents if there's a specific one you want to refer to, but don't know where to find it.

Finally, a few Amazon reviews suggest that not all the written instructions are without error, so be careful when following them. The charts are correct, though, so perhaps double check the written instructions against them.… (mer)