Two of the books that I borrowed this week are No Sheep for You by Amy Singer and Knitting for Peace by Betty Christiansen. I like both books, so thought I’d do a review of them for you.
No Sheep for you - Amy R Singer
The sub-heading for this is “Knit happy with cotton, silk, linen, hemp, bamboo and other delights” and as you may have guessed it does not have any patterns in it that use wool. Amy is allergic to wool - I’m not, I choose not to use it, but I can benefit from her book too. (Actually, I don’t use silk either, but I still like the book!)
Amy starts out by telling us all about the different kind of fibre options that are open to us - hemp, linen, cotton, silk, rayon, bamboo, corn, lyocell, modal, soy and synthetics - where they come from and how they are made. She also lists the yarn’s qualities, how it should be washed, dried or blocked - very comprehensive in an attractively presented and entertaining way.
The second chapter tells us how to substitute yarns. Say you see a pattern for a beautiful garment that you really want to make, but it’s knitted in wool, you need to know how to substitute that yarn with something that will give you a good result. The only thing that we non-wool users can’t do is felting.
After reminding us of the need to knit a gauge swatch, we’re into the patterns. There’s a good choice of things to make in varying levels of difficulty. Twenty one designs including three women’s cardigans, two men’s sweaters, socks, thrummed mittens (using silk instead of wool), a coat, a bag, a lacy shawl, interspersed with more handy hints.
Knitting for Peace - Betty Christiansen
The sub-heading for this book is “Make the world a better place one stitch at a time” and its mission is to tell you about many of the organisations that accept donations of knitted items and also give you patterns you can use to make things to give.
Chapter One starts out with a history of wartime knitting, and how knitters the world over have helped clothe and comfort people in need. We are given a short history of organisations like the Red Cross, The Ships Project and the Revolutionary Knitting Circle and contact information for them in case we want to follow up.
The following chapters describe twenty charities or companies that are working for the benefit of children, elders, premature babies and animals and there are 14 patterns including socks, a child’s vest, a blanket, a shawl, hats and teddy bears. They are all simple to make and the book is in inspiration to any knitter wishing to give back to the community.
Happy Knitting!
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