Review: Cozy Country Knits

I don’t know why, when the weather is finally officially warm here in Arkansas, the book I picked to review this week is one that’s decidedly meant for the fall and winter, but this is the one that jumped out at me.

Cozy Country Knits by Manuela Burkhardt and Dorothea Neumann is all about getting cozy with you’re knitting. It’s full of sweaters and jackets, socks and hats, as well as other accessories with what the subtitle of the book calls “classic rural charm,” which mostly means a lot of chunky knits, texture and cables.

The book includes 24 patterns – eight rated easy, nine intermediate and seven advanced — most of which are sweaters or socks but there are also some hats, wraps and other projects in there, too.

Some of my favorites include the Rustic Pullover, with a complex mass of cables at the center front that still manages to look casual; Delicate Lace, a pullover worked in worsted weight yarn with an allover lace pattern that’s actually not all that delicate; Warm and Elegant, a chunky cardigan with a simple textured stitch pattern; and the Cozy Tam, a slouchy cabled hat.

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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