The Principle of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt

It’s been a long time since I came across a definite MUST HAVE reference book. Dudes, this is totally it! If you have a question about knitting, it’s in here.

I’m sure you’ve heard about this book. The entire name is The Comprehensive and Timeless Guide. The Principles of Knitting. Methods and Techniques of Hand Knitting, and it’s every bit of that. Just shy of 800 pages of every bit of knitting info, every technique, every little thing you can imagine.

You can find the original, on sale, or now the electronic version HERE:

This book has been completely revised and updated, and just released – Feb 2012.

Check out this link HERE to get an inside view of this book. Check out the table of contents. There’s everything; every single thing you could ever think of to help with your knitting. New and better ways to do things, from casting on to seaming up and blocking. Everything!

Read about placement of hands and fingers for different methods of knitting. Read about how the techniques and stitches got their names. I could go on and on listing the different ideas and contents of this book, but you’d get a much better idea by clicking over to the BROWSE ONLINE version. Go on, check it out, I’ll wait right here….

I rarely understand why something becomes a trend in crafting. Gnomes and geese are both cute I guess, but I never thought we’d be making them for all seasons. (See, for example, this collection of gnome knitting patterns, or these knit geese.)

Another one I don’t totally understand is sardines or little fish more generally. Sure, they’re cute, and the shape is fun, but I had no idea when I was sharing this pattern for a fish-shaped pouch last year that it would become a hugely popular pattern that people are still searching for on the site. It is pretty cute, though, so if you weren’t around then or don’t remember you should got check it out.

Recently another fishy knitting pattern crossed my monitor: the little knit fish from Classical Songbird Designs.

Just as the name suggests, these fish are little, about 4.5 inches or 11 cm from end to end. They look like little sardines and take about 12 yards of sock yarn to make.

You can even make a two-tone fish and use just 6 yards of each color.

This sounds to me like just about the perfect use for the yarn that’s left over after knitting a pair of socks, or a mini skein or several that have been sitting around unused in your stash.

The fish are knit flat in one piece, which makes it easy to stitch on the eyes with more yarn or embroidery floss before stuffing, and you can stitch up the sides while you stuff (though it’s not a very big piece so you could probably stitch and then stuff, finishing with the end of the tail).

Because I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one wondering, I measured an Altoids box and as the pattern is written the fish are a little too big to fit in it (the box is about 4 inches/10 cm long). But you could make the fish a little smaller if you want to make a box of them. Or just make a fishy bag to put them in!

You can grab the free pattern for the little knit fish at Classical Songbird Designs.

[Photo: Classical Songbird Designs.]

Have you read?