Stitch 'n Bitch - well, the second one I can do, no problem... (Stitch 'n Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook - Debbie Stoller)

Member Name: prekrassnyi

Product:	Stitch 'n Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook - Debbie Stoller
Date:	08/02/09 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Different, quirky patterns.

Disadvantages: Overly complicated at parts.

Stitch 'n Bitch, the handbook and Bible of the wave of neo-vogue knitters (touted in magazines as knitting because it keeps their hands off food amusingly enough) has a certain kind of try-too-hard feel - knitting isn't cool so let's make it cool with instarsia and doggie coats with matching human accessories and use really hard to work with wool and...well, the list goes on. Try too hard is almost the mantra of this book.

It's laid out in a very accessible way (like any other beginners knitting book but...well, hipper) with instructions on how to knit, purl and block for example with a little plug for crochet (Debbie Stoller has since gone on to produce a Stitch 'n Bitch ala crochet book) and other tidbits of information (The Virgin Mary knits! Marge Simpson knits! Truly, this is a trandescental craft!) which while I found interesting, the actual technical stuff just didn't make any sense. She attempts to use a metaphor to explain a knit stitch and somehow makes it really incomphrensible - maybe it comes across better when you're being instructed by someone at the same time but it just made me want to throw my book across the room!

I ended up watching a video of how to do a knit stitch and prepared, set on the tasks set in the book which are based around each new skill you acquire (scarves for knit and purl stitches, a nice little headscarf for increasing and descreasing) which are nice, fast projects and very usuable.

Eventually, I got to the patterns which are made up from a number of contributors. There's a little section about knit pattern lingo - the k*1 and so on - but the patterns themselves can be immensely complicated and maybe since this is promoted as a total beginners book, translations in the back would have been helpful? And then you can begin:

1. All the wool/yarn used in this book is American. There are no other suggestions. This is quite annoying.

2. Some of the objects you can knit are just plain useless or ugly or won't look anything like the picture in the book.

3. There are no real instant gratiftication projects and the cooler projects are without fail, the longest and most complicated ones while the quicker ones are plain and without anything 'hip' to distingush them from everyday patterns.

While this does sound like an overly critical review, it is only because there are better books for beginners out there. I feel like most people would get frustrated or bored with this book very easily as the basic intructions aren't always clear and the hipster tone can be very grating but overall, the patterns are imaginative and there is a lot of information about salvaging projects, blocking them after finishing and adding decorative touches that you wouldn't perhaps find in other books for beginners. This is definitely a book for intermediate knitters or beginners with dialup so they can watch videos of the basic stuff.

Summary: A good book for knitters looking for something different.