Book Review – The Knitter’s Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters

As a knitter, I have always had a fondness for top-down knitting patterns. These patterns allow you to knit your sweater from the top down, starting with the neck and working your way down to the hem. This method of knitting has many benefits, one of the biggest being that it allows you to try on your sweater as you go, ensuring the perfect fit. It also means you can easily adjust the length of your sweater or sleeves as you knit, and it eliminates the need for seaming at the end.

In “The Knitter’s Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters: Basic Designs in Multiple Sizes and Gauges,” Ann Budd offers instructions for knitting five basic sweater types: circular yoke, raglan, modified-drop shoulder, set-in sleeve, and saddle shoulder. These patterns are offered in multiple sizes and yarn gauges and for a broad age group, making it a great resource for knitters of all skill levels.

The book also includes three diverse patterns from top designers that illustrate some of the many ways that instructions can be used as springboards for creative expression, including color, texture, and shaping variations. For intermediate to advanced knitters, there are personal design touches, detailed charts, clear instructions, and quick tips to expand knitting possibilities and maintain creative originality. Overall, this is a key reference for knitters and a must-have on any knitter’s bookshelf.

Knit a colorwork hat inspired by every state in the United States with Knitting the U.S.A. by Nancy Bates. Like her previous book of hats inspired by US national parks, this book includes a colorful hat design for every state.

The book opens with a very brief section on the basics (which is about choosing colors, gauge, picking a cast on method, using duplicate stitch and blocking). A few more techniques are explored at the back of the book, but this is a book that assumes you know how to knit, read a chart and work colorwork knitting.

Patterns are arranged by geographical location with no clear organization within the sections (not alphabetical, geographical, by date admitted to the Union, etc.). That may only annoy me, but it did so now you know.

Each state has an image like a postcard showing what inspired the hat (snow-capped trees for North Dakota, a grassy field of horses for Kentucky, a racoon for New Jersey to name a few) and a few paragraphs about iconic things and experiences in that state (Massachusetts has a lot of bricks, South Carolina lots of food).

A list of the colors used in the pattern is given, as well as needles, notions and gauge. All the designs say they fit an average adult head and are meant to come out around 20.25 inches or 51.5 cm around.

There is a little bit of written instruction for each hat, and the colorwork is given as a chart. Hats are worked from the bottom up and feature ribbing along the bottom.

The patterns are cute and colorful, though as with any big book like this lots of designs could cover lots of states. Arkansas for instance (since I’m from there I always have to bring it up!) has a sort of textured, not quite chevron design worked in three colors to highlight our hills and forests. It’s pretty but you’d never know it was supposed to represent any state, particularly Arkansas.

Still, these hats are fun and if your state is more distinctive (or even if it isn’t) you might want to knit your state or the hat from your favorite place to travel or where you were born or where someone is moving and have fun knitting your way across America in hats.

About the book: 232 pages, hardcover, 50 patterns. Published 2025 by Weldon Owen. Suggested retail price $32.50.

Have you read?