Book Review: Everyday Knitting

If you want a brief introduction to most of the things you might want to learn about when learning to knit, Everyday Knitting by Megan Goodacre has you covered.

It talks about everything from yarn weights and needle types to casting on, knitting, purling and binding off. You’ll find tutorials for basic increases and decreases, colorwork, cables and lace, tips for reading patterns and charts and plenty of patterns to practice your new skills.

The biggest part of the book is these tutorials, with a couple of beginner practice patterns (a garter stitch washcloth and a knit and purl chevron coaster) found toward the beginning of the book, another chapter with four more patterns is in the middle, and the rest of the patterns are at the back of the book.

Skill ratings are on a scale of one to five, which don’t correspond to the standard skill levels (which is a scale of four). For example, a pair of Fair Isle style fingerless mitts worked in the round is a skill level five on her scale, but would probably be a two on a standard project level chart. Three of the patterns (aside from the ones scattered through the book) don’t have skill ratings listed.

Of those that do, two are rated one, three each are levels two, three and four, and two are level five. The other five rating goes to a woman’s sized raglan sweater with a textured panel on the front but that’s mostly stockinette stitch. I think the three patterns that aren’t rated would be level two, but I can’t understand the thinking that went into the rating system.

In addition to the patterns there’s a gallery of knitting stitches you can add to your projects.

Lots of photos illustrate the tutorials, but there are only one or two pictures each of the finished projects in the pattern section.

There are definitely things about this book that annoyed me (not teaching about holding the yarn in your left hand until 37 pages after holding yarn in the right hand is introduced, saying seed stitch and moss stitch are the same thing, etc.) but for basic, general information on how to knit all in one place, it’s a pretty good guide.

About the book: 272 pages, paperback, 22 patterns. Published 2024 by DK Publishing. Suggested retail price $24.99.

Patty Lyons is known for teaching knitters the how and the why of knitting skills. Her Knitting Bag of Tricks helped knitters learn how stitches work, why we do things the way we do and what might be better alternatives.

Patty Lyons’ Knitting ER aims to do the same with a particular focus on fixing mistakes in your knitting both before and after you bind off. She has deliberately made mistakes (and tons of accidental ones as well) to teach herself the best methods for fixing everything from a misplaced increase and a dropped edge stitch to faulty cable turns, messed up lace and brioche knitting disasters, to name a few.

The book starts with a foundation of understanding how stitches work, how to read them, and the basic methods we use for fixing mistakes in knitting: frogging (ripping out several rows at a time), tinking (removing stitches across a row one stitch at a time) and dropping a stitch or several stitches on purpose to fix a mistake and ladder it back up.

It talks about the most basic mistakes like accidental yarn overs and slipped stitches and how to fix them, as well as tips for using lifelines or slipping a smaller needle into your project to hold the stitches before you rip.

Then we move on to more complicated fixes like picking up a dropped edge stitch, fixing a dropped cast on stitch, removing the twist from a circular knitting project (which you can only do after the first round is knit; this is an ER not a miracle station), fixing ladders in a project, tinking when you’re worked increases or decreases (or what to do when you forgot to add them) and fixing dropped stitches at the edges or short rows.

After that is the specialist’s office, which covers fix-it techniques you might not ever need, or only rarely, but it’s nice to have a place you can find the solution if you ever do need it. We’re talking fixing mistakes in a lace pattern, dealing with miscrossed cables (and counting rows in the cable so you when when it’s the right time to work it again), colorwork issues and brioche blunders. Some of these diagrams are sure to give you pause if you’ve never done something like dropping down a single cable for 20 rows and reknitting it, but again, it’s nice to know you can do those things if you need to.

Even if your project is done it’s not too late for the doctor to do some good. You’ll also learn how to use duplicate stitch to make knit and purl stitches on the surface of a knitting project, which allows you to do things like fake a decrease you forgot, add a purl you missed in a textured stitch pattern, even fix mistakes in lace, stranded knitting, brioche and cables.

There’s also tips for dealing with too tight cast ons and bind offs and floppy necklines, pieces knit too long or too short and very detailed instructions for grafting in probably any situation you might encounter, as well as approaches to major surgery.

A lot in these later chapters is kind of mind blowing, and if you’re not getting it from drawings, there are QR codes to videos that cover a lot of the problems and allow you to see the fixes in another way. And there are cute illustrations on the theme of knitting ER from Franklin Habit, too!

If you’ve ever wanted to know how to fix mistakes, minor or major, without having to rip out all of your knitting, this is the book you’ll want to have on your shelf for ready reference and reassurance throughout your knitting career.

About the book: 208 pages, paperback, published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.

Have you read?