Review: Make Your Own Idea Book with Arne & Carlos

One of the things I love about the Arne & Carlos books is the way they are designed. There are so many fun pictures displaying some of their collections and the things that inspired the designs.

Arne & Carlos develop their ideas using idea books, which are part art journal, part three-dimensional Pinterest. These handmade smash books are glorious, holding sketches, swatches, ticket stubs and whatever ephemera they collect on their travels.

They share exactly how they make their idea books and what people might include in their own in their book Make Your Own Idea Book with Arne & Carlos: Create Handmade Art Journals and Bound Keepsakes to Store Inspiration and Memories.

While the book doesn’t really have anything to do with knitting, it’s possible to use idea books to gather knitting inspiration or pattern notes, and Arne & Carlos use them in developing knitting patterns, books and designs.

The first part of the book covers how they make their idea books, using a variety of papers sewn together and bound. Most of the materials are pretty simple to acquire, and you can easily make a bunch to store all sorts of ideas and inspiration.

The rest of the book talks about different ways you can use the journals, with pictures from their idea books to show how it might be done. Some of the many ideas shown include collecting ideas for knitting and crochet, gardening, geneology, hobbies, travel, weddings, holidays and more.

This book is so fun and inspiring and will make you want to make your own books (I have a simpler version on my blog) and fill them with all sorts of great stuff.

About the book: 168 pages, paperback with interior flaps. Published June 2016 by Trafalgar Square Books. Suggested retail $22.95.

When I discovered Kate Atherley’s book Circular Knitting for Beginners and Beyond, I wasn’t sure there was enough to say about circular knitting to fill a book. It’s a pretty short book (144 pages) and includes 10 patterns to practice working in the round on small projects, and it provides a decent introduction to the various ways of working in the round.

The book covers using double pointed knitting needles, flexible double points and circular knitting needles with cables. It talks about working using the full circumference of a circular needle and various ways to work smaller circumference projects, such as using DPNs, magic loop and knitting with two circular knitting needles.

In addition there’s a discussion of preventing problems like twists and ladders, swatching in the round without actually swatching in the round, grafting, blocking and weaving in ends.

More specialized techniques likes knitting from the center out, stranded colorwork, helical knitting and jogless stripes are also explored, as well as working pieces like socks or mitts two at a time.

There’s also some information about seamless sweaters, including the different sweater designs that can be worked seamlessly (and why you might want seams in your sweaters) and how they are worked from the top down or the bottom up.

There are 10 patterns in the book, including a basic stockinette stitch cowl and one with a deliberate twist, wrist warmers, mitts and a pair of colorwork mittens, a hat worked in a solid color or in helical stripes, toe up and top down socks and a beret. It would have been nice to have a basic sweater pattern, too, since the book does talk about working larger garments with circular needles, but it’s still a nice collection of basic patterns worked in the round.

If you’re already comfortable working in the round in different ways, I’m not sure there’s much for you to learn in this book, but it is a good reference for people learning circular knitting or who maybe haven’t tried all the techniques yet or need skill building projects to try.

About the book: 144 pages, paperback, 10 patterns. Published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.

Have you read?