DE-STASHING CONTEST

I’ve found another batch of books from my stash that I want to GIVE AWAY. Hot Diggity! Another contest is born.

annies-pattern-club-number-43 This is Annie’s Pattern Club #43. In this batch, there are 5 other Annie’s Pattern Club books and a digest sized Red Heart ‘Super Simple Fashions to Knit and Crochet’. These are all in great condition and in need of a good home. Could that home be yours??

To win this stash batch, you gotta jump through a hoop or two. Here’s the contest:

Planning ahead to Christmas. We have to start now if we want to crochet some great Christmas gifts. What I want you to do is find a special Christmas themed doily that’s a free pattern somewhere on the internet. Post a LINK and the NAME of the doily (if it has a name) in the comment section of this blog article. In addition, send an email to me ([email protected]) containing your name, snail mail address, and the link to the doily pattern.

ONE ENTRY PER PERSON please! Any skill level, size, or shape doily is fine so long as it’s Christmas themed. That would include things like angels and snowmen in addition to Christmas trees, stars, Santa, reindeer, elves, etc. So, while the category is flexible, it needs to be clearly linked in some manner to Christmas.

Further, I’d LOVE for you to find a doily that is special to YOU and some tradition or heritage shared in your home. Please include that information – say, you’re of Swedish heritage and you find a doily that contains a traditional Swedish Christmas theme. Briefly explain the reason the design is special to you so that we’ll all understand. No need to write a book, here. Just a brief explanation should suffice.

REMEMBER THAT THE WINNING ENTRY WILL BE DETERMINED BY ME ALONE. I have my prejudices. That’s just the way it is. DO NOT SEND THE LINK OR PHOTO IN AN ATTACHMENT. BE SURE TO PUT ‘CROCHET CONTEST’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE, PLEASE!

Hope I’m not making this too complicated. It should be FUN rather than work. I’m looking forward to seeing what you send me. BTW – a link to an original design of your own is fine. Does not have to have been previously published on the web.

PLEASE BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR SNAIL MAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR EMAIL TO ME!

PLEASE honor design copyright guidelines (laws) and do not link a pattern from a page depicting a published work appearing in a book or magazine – the kind that one can find easily on Russian sites (and others too). These will be deleted, rendering your entry ineligible. Entries linked from other free pattern sites are fine as are entries from blogs, other websites, and other online sources offering free crochet patterns.

The contest will run from today through Saturday, August 15, 2009. Winner will be announced shortly thereafter.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to instructional books about knitting. Either focus in one particular technique or kind of knitting (stranded knitting, say, or brioche) or try to cover a little bit of everything in a reference book that knitters will use throughout their careers.

The Knitting Book by Frederica Patmore and Dr. Vikki Haffenden aims to be the second kind. The subtitle is: a step-by-step guide to creating imaginative projects for the home and to wear. I’m not sure it does that, exactly, but it does include a quick look at a lot of different techniques and stitch patterns you might use in your projects.

A “guide to creating imaginative projects” sounds to me like it’s about design, but this book is not. There’s 1/3 of a page about altering patterns that only talks about how to add length to a sleeve and adjust where the increases go.

There’s nothing about measuring your body (the section on choosing a size in a pattern only suggests measuring a garment you already own), general garment construction, ease or stitch pattern multiples. The section on gauge (which is the last third of the page with choosing a garment size and altering patterns, discussed above) just says to knit a swatch, block and measure it to compare to a pattern, with no discussion on how you might use your swatch to design your own project or alter a pattern to meet your gauge.

If you ignore the subtitle, what you will find is a lot of information about different kinds of knitting and various techniques you might want to try on your projects. There are 20 cast ons and 15 bind off options, for instance, all discussed before you learn how to knit or purl. (Another quibble I have with this book is the order in which things are presented, but that’s relatively minor.)

You’ll find quick hits on increases and decreases, twists and cables, lace, colorwork, textured effects like fisherman’s rib and brioche, loops, mosaic knitting, double knitting, decorative stitches, shadow knitting, bias knitting, mitered squares, entrelac and more. There are tips for selvedge stitches, knitting with beads, adding buttonholes, picking up stitches and more.

A few patterns at the back give knitters a taste of some of the techniques included, but they’re not rated by skill level and the first one is a bias knit gradient scarf worked in six different colors of mohair, which isn’t a thing I’d wish on any beginner.

And I guess that’s maybe what my issue with the book is. I don’t know if it’s meant for beginners and it doesn’t seem to, either. I feel like this book would be overwhelming to new knitters and doesn’t really give you a place to start or all the information you might need to do projects well.

The variety of techniques included is fun, and there are also stitch patterns in the back you can use on your own projects, but again it doesn’t really provide any guidance for how to design your own projects so I don’t know how helpful all of that is.

I want to like books like this because having one reference that helps you with a lot of different things is great, I’m just not sure this is the one. If you can find it at your library or local book store and flip through it before buying, I think that would be a great idea to see if it’s a book that would be helpful for you.

And if you have this book and love it please let me know! I’m sure it’s good for someone I’m just not sure who.

About the book: 336 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by DK. Suggested retail price $40.

Have you read?