Review: Kids’ Ultimate Craft Book

If you’ve got kids home for the summer or are just interested in indoctrinating them into the world of crafts at any time of year, Kids’ Ultimate Craft Book is a fun place to start.

This compilation craft book from the editors at Quarry Books covers knitting as well as beading, crochet, knotting, braiding and sewing. Each of the five chapters includes an overview of materials, tools and techniques needed to get started, and then there are a few patterns the kiddo can use to practice that craft.

The knitting chapter begins with an introduction from Mary Scott Huff and includes tips on yarn weight, gauge and fiber, essential tools, how to measure and count stitches and rows, working a cable cast on, the knit stitch, purling, working in the round and binding off.

It also includes some tips for fixing mistakes including how to tink and frog. There are also photo tutorials on basic increases and decreases, how to weave in ends nad blocking. It’s a pretty solid education in the basics that will help a new knitter learn on their own or refresh your memory on how to talk through the basic steps to make teaching someone else easier.

The knitting patterns included are a bias knit garter stitch washcloth, a cowl worked in the round with ribbed edges and a stockinette stitch body (shown in two colors, which adds another skill) and a pencil roll worked in two colors. They’re cute projects but I don’t know if a new knitter would stick with the cowl or the pencil roll long enough to finish them. (That said we do usually start knitters on scarves, which isn’t exactly a fast project, so these could be fine, too!)

Since a lot of us like both knitting and crochet (and it’s great to try to teach kids both in case they take to one more easily), I’ll mention the crochet section covers the parts of a hook, abbreviations and reading charts (though charts are not used in the book), how to hold the hook and yarn, making a slip knot, chain, slip stitch, single crochet, double crochet, and tips for working in rows and rounds. The patterns include a braided friendship bracelet made out of chains, a monster with a rectangular single crochet body and twisty arms and legs, and a granny square scarf.

This book provides a quick overview of a bunch of different crafts your teen or tween might be interested in and tells you the basics you need to know to make some fun and relatively easy projects. I think this would be a great book to have on hand for summer, or rainy days, or winter, when those I’m bored feelings creep up (especially if you have a well-stocked craft room so these projects can be started without a trip to the craft store).

About the book: 192 pages, paperback (ebook edition also available), 16 projects (3 knitting patterns). Published 2021 by Quarry Books, suggested retail price $24.99.

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When I first started knitting again after a long absence from the craft (which has now been almost 25 years ago!) I really didn’t like garter stitch that much. I found it super boring, somehow even more boring than knitting stockinette stitch in the round, even though it’s exactly the same thing.

Over the years I’ve softened my opinion, and even grown to like garter stitch. There’s nothing wrong with being plain, and actually the texture of garter stitch is more interesting than stockinette.

Also there are fun things you can do with garter stitch to make it more interesting if you want to, such as adding stripes, working on the bias, or doing fun effects to change the look.

That’s the way with the Bernat Twist My Way Garter Knit Blanket. Using combinations of casting on and binding off creates what they call a Swiss cheese effect along two sides of the blanket. This is a lot of fun in the self-striping ombre yarn they chose for the pattern, but it would also be fun in a solid color or making your own stripes.

Despite the dramatic effect, this pattern is rated easy. It’s worked from side to side (if you consider the “cheesy” edges the top and bottom) and has an eight-row repeat that involves binding off and then casting on again to make the holes. They’re kind of like giant buttonholes.

Once you get the hang of it it’s a pretty easy repeat to remember, and it will be smooth knitting as big as you want to make it.

You can download this pattern from the Yarnspirations website for free, or you can buy a kit direct from them that includes the yarn you need (and knitting needles if you need those, too). Bernat Sport Ombre Twist, which is what is used in the pattern, comes in 12 self patterning colors and is a DK weight acrylic yarn.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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