Book Review: Vogue Knitting The Ultimate Quick Reference

There are a lot of great knitting reference books out there but a lot of them aren’t very portable. Vogue Knitting aimed for a comprehensive guide to knitting that you can still stick in your knitting bag and take with you on the go with their Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Quick Reference.

The book crams a lot into 184 pages, including:

Basic techniques, such as holding yarn and needles, casting on, knitting, purling, increases, decreases, binding off, cables, stranded knitting, intarsia, stripes, mosaic, lace and correcting mistakes.
Advanced techniques like entrelac, modular knitting, center-out shapes, brioche and double knitting.
Understanding instructions including gauge, schematics, counting rows, abbreviations and symbols
Correcting errors like twisted, dropped and incomplete stitches, lifelines, mending and darning.
Finishing, which includes blocking, grafting, picking up stitches, hemming, cleaning and storage of knits.
Embellishments like embroidery, beads and sequins
Tables and Tools such as needle and hook sizes, conversions and yarn weights.

Even the back flap of the book is useful, as it includes a stitch gauge and needle gauge you can take with you anywhere you take your knitting.

Techniques include written descriptions, how-to drawings and photographs of finished swatches. The pictures are a little small but not so small that they aren’t useful, and small illustrations help them include more information in a smaller space.

This book covers just about everything you might need to know when you’re away from a computer or a more thorough knitting reference book. If you find yourself often wishing you had a handy guide to remembering how to do Kitchener stitch or the right way to pick up stitches or you just want to learn on the go this is a great guide to have.

Flip through the book with me on Instagram.

About the book: 184 pages, paperback with flaps. Published October 2019, Sixth & Spring Books. Suggested retail $22.95.

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

Have you read?