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.

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

Have you read?